Tuesday, December 10, 7:30pm

    2013 flew by quickly, didn’t it? It’s already the last up.front.ug of the year! Don’t miss our December meetup with talks by Regine Heidorn, Frank Leue and Michael Pieracci, and join us for a cozy pre-holidays get-together afterwards.
    You are welcome to spread the word and invite friends on Twitter, meetup.com or Google+!

    • Regine Heidorn: CSS – Best Practices and Maintainability

      While working with precompilers and CSS frameworks one often gets to reflect about the necessity of programming language features within CSS. Looking at the CSS basics like cascade and inheritance helps to get a better understanding of writing good cascading stylesheets. We can see some artifacts remaining from the print era, but we can also put a spotlight on how great CSS can be used. Regine will discuss the following thesis: Everything that helps the browser to interpret CSS in a performant way also helps developers to write better, more maintainable code and facilitates a smoother workflow. If you ever were curious as to why the :hover in CSS works this talk will be perfect for you.

      Passionate frontend developer, author of CSS – Best Practices und Wartbarkeit (German only). Will bring some copies.

    • Frank Leue: Building shapeshifting interfaces

      Building things on the web is great. Especially just now as responsive design solved lots of our problems. But taking a glimpse at the near future you’ll see not only desktops, tablets and phones. There will be watches and super large TV sets. Interaction with those devices will not necessarily include your fingertips anymore but very likely gestures and voice control. While the emerging internet of things is going to surround us with connected devices constantly providing or collecting data, we need to think about how to build consistent experiences throughout the day. This talk is about how to build frontends that adopt to contexts and provide consistent information and a continuity of your brand across devices.

      Frank is a Berlin-based web enthusiast. Crafting code for frontends and backends has been his passion since 1997. Working on the web provides him endless opportunities to express creativity, and put some bright moments in other peoples’ life. He’s currently Technical Director at Hi-ReS! Berlin.

    • Michael Pieracci: A Presentation About Presenting

      Throughout his life Michael has always struggled to explain his work and hobbies in clear and concise ways. "You work where?" "What does your company do?" "You like 'tea'?" One of his favorite ways to deliver detailed, complete, and clear information is through presenting. By creating a presentation he can deliver information in a tailored way for the topic and the audience. Michael encourages others to find their niche and develop their voice through presenting too.

      Michael Pieracci lived in San Francisco for the last 8 years doing project and event management at FontShop. He recently moved to Berlin and is on the hunt for new opportunities.

      • Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

      Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, November 12, 7:30pm

    Days are getting colder, nights are getting longer and we are just getting started! Don’t miss our November meetup with talks by Jack Wild, Nico Hagenburger and Nasia Makrygianni.

    • Jack Wild: How to be a Jack of all trades, and master of some.

      How can singing lessons make you a better graphic designer? What can a project manager teach you about Web Design? How on earth are drama classes relevant to designing great UX? Using practical examples we’ll see how skills we learn doing one thing can be easily manipulated and transferred to other areas. It’s never been easier to go out and try your hand at something new, so why aren’t we all doing it?

      After trying his hand at Journalism, Acting, TV Production, VFX, Concept Development, Graphic Design and Front End Development, Jack somehow ended up as a Digital Designer. He’s currently working with Bacon de Czar here in Berlin.

    • Nico Hagenburger: Why You Might Immediately Fall in Love with Sketch

      Sketch is a powerful alternative to Photoshop and Illustrator when it comes to web and especially iOS 7 design. Learn how styles, effects and slice settings speed up your workflow. And know where to stop, as Sketch.app is not perfect yet.

      Nico currently focusses on creating living style guides for big websites as well as designing iOS applications. Working on design and front-ends with Sass, he created Compass Sprites and works on new Sass extensions.

    • Nasia Makrygianni: Design and Develop Performance

      We all know that size and time matters. We live in a world where everything and everyone is moving fast. We always surf a site or open an app, seeking information while on the road, at work or in our free time. Millions are lost from sales which didn’t happen because of half a second delay. Being part of the IT community that delivers such an experience to people might be stressing. Is this a one person’s job? Let’s not drown in a sea of technical details and talk about how united forces of frontend developers and web designers can make good performance happen. Nasia will share with you her experience from improving KaufDA’s loading times.

      Nasia is a front-end developer at Kaufda - Bonial International Group who thinks out of the box and appreciates clean, reusable code. She loves cartoons and can’t wait to put them into action on browsers.

    Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter or Google+!

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, October 08, 7:30pm

    For our October meetup we go beyond product and development techniques and learn about what it takes to manage and communicate in projects and what it takes to make your product stand out.

    • Rebecca Conrad & Lisa Passing Rails Girls SoC - All for one and one for all

      Rails Girls Summer of Code is a global event which focuses on bringing more women into the world of open source software and helping participants to further expand their knowledge and skills in programming. 33 students got the chance to work paid and full-time on their projects, attend tech conferences and even speak on them. This all wouldn’t haven been possible without a great team of volunteers, organizers and sponsors. Lisa (implementing the webdesign) and Rebecca (adding illustrations) will talk a little more about the organisation and their involvement.

      Lisa Passing is a frontend-developer, Rebecca Conrad is a graphic designer and illustrator.

    • Behrad Mirafshar: Design Habit

      Our digital life is bombarded by apps. However, we use few of them on a daily basis. This does not mean that the other apps are not well-designed, this is basically because they fail to make a mark in our life and to create a habit for us. This talk endeavors to explore what we deliver behind our apps.

      Behrad is an UX/UI designer. He always likes to partake in interesting projects. He loves cafes. He is a proud Neuköllner.

    • Lindsay Eyink Nothing is Perfect. Eveything is Hacked.

      Surprise lightning talk!

    • Francesco Kirchhoff “That’s not what I meant”: On empathy in our work

      Besides the skills specific to our job, a huge part of building digital products is about communicating with other people. The better we understand our clients, bosses and colleagues, and the better we are at helping them understand us and what we do, the better the project will turn out and the less stress we are likely to generate. Some general thoughts on a more empathetic approach to communication and a list of specific ideas to improve understanding and avoid communication breakdowns.

      Rome-born, Berlin-based Francesco is a caffeine addict who toils away day and sometimes night as a freelance UX designer and project manager for various web agencies and startups in Berlin in order to support his tragic habit. He tries his best not to increase the pervasive ugliness and thoughtlessness, for bad design makes him weep.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, September 10, 7:30pm

    September is a very exciting time for the Berlin web community: With events like CSSconf.eu, JSconf EU, NodeCopter, and Reject.js happening, the city will be packed with web designers and frontend developers from all over the world. We are happy to contribute with an awesome up.front lineup!

    • Leila El-Kayem: How Technology Enables Greater Storytelling

      Leila loves to tell stories. Stories about journeys, city walks and people she meets. So Leila turned her love of story telling into a way for Brands to tell their story. This talk is about how the best stories start with experiences and how technology can be used to share them.

      Leila is a Creative Director at Razorfish.

    • Tiffany Conroy: DOM? What about the CSSOM?

      Have you read the crazy stuff in the CSSOM spec!? There is some super interesting stuff in there. Come over here and let Tiffany show you some pretty neat things she learned, and some fun things she made.

      Tiffany is a Canadian living in Berlin doing front-end development and interaction design at SoundCloud.

    • Valentina Montagna: Designing for Ephemeral Technology

      What happens when innovation in technology is faster than your ability to learn new skills? What happens to the design process in a world of planned obsolescence? This talk will help you to slow down things (a bit) and see them from another perspective.

      Valentina is a designer and co-founder of urli.st.

    • Angelina Fabbro: Firefox OS: It's coming, it's here.

      Firefox OS is a brand new open mobile platform built with web technology that front end developers are already familiar with. In this talk I will explain the benefits of developing for this platform (even if you don't reside in one of the first launch countries) as well as demonstrate how easy it is to get started from the perspective of a front-end developer. Light live demo to be provided to show the simulator in action.

      Angelina is a programmer based in Vancouver, Canada and works at Mozilla. Angelina has a background in cognitive science, building clever robots and researching what people pay attention to. Her record as a web developer is balanced with modern iOS experience and a keen sense of design. Angelina also both teaches and mentors for the Vancouver chapter of Ladies Learning Code.


    We recommend checking out CSSconf.eu, a conference dedicated to CSS and the designers, developers and engineers who build the world’s most engaging user interfaces.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Friday, August 09, 7:30pm

    We have one more speaker slot! Write us on twitter or send us an email if you have a design or frontend topic to discuss, or if you have a speaker to suggest.

    It’s the summer edition of up.front! In the summer, many of us try to take some time off and maybe reflect on the things we do. We would like to pick up on that theme, with two personal talks, aimed to help us define ourselves as professionals, freelancers, designers or developers, and maybe as humans.

    We hope this will spur a lot of discussion, and as usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open at 7pm, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat!

    Follow us on Twitter for updates.

    • Sven Ellingen: Always be Building

      Sven loves to start things. And then grow them. Ideas, things, projects, products, teams. And lately: a company — after 5 years at Edenspiekermann, he decided to start from scratch, on his own. This talk is about leaving something great behind to make room for something that’s even better. It’s essentially about the beauty of building things.

      Sven is a designer bridging disciplines across business, design, and technology. Co-founder of @acolorbright. Previously: Creative Director at @edenspiekermann.

    • Kilian McMahon: Embracing what you're not

      Kilian has spent the last couple of years fumbling around as a designer trying to figure out how to become the people he admired but to no avail. This talk is about getting away from the idea of fitting yourself to others, recognising that you don't work like everyone else and understanding that being different is so much better.

      Kilian is a designer from Dublin who works on a ticketing app called Tito and a conference called Úll.

    • Fabian Mürmann: How not to get killed as a freelancer

      Fabian spend nine years working as a freelance front- and back end, product / concept guy for a bunch of different, international, companies & startups.
      In this talk he’ll share a few things that he learned on the way: Infos on how to deal with taxes, clients from hell, working remote, that kind of stuff.

      Fabian is a Creative Technologist, working in the web since 16 years and currently co-managing an innovation lab at the Bertelsmann DirectGroup.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, June 11, 7:30pm

    Don’t miss our June meetup with talks by Karolina Szczur (@fox), Cath Richardson (@ohrworm) and Natalia Berdys (@batalia). Doors open at 7pm at co.up’s third floor. After the meet-up there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open at 7pm, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat!

    Follow us on Twitter for updates, and tell your friends on meetup.com and Facebook.

    • Karolina Szczur Designing with Color

      “There’s more to color than a swatch in a book” – a wise man said once. Color is one of the most powerful, emotion evoking weapon in designer’s toolbelt, yet sometimes we fail to recognize its importance. From perception, psychological and cultural meaning of color to systems, optical illusions, usability restraints and useful tools.

      Karolina is a designer and front-end developer. She worked with numerous startups, curated a lesson at Hack Design course and helps out as an editor at Smashing Mag.

    • Cath Richardson Embracing the mundane

      Sometimes to make something amazing, you have to start with something boring. This talk is about embracing the mundane problems which surround us everyday. Thermostats, workflows, print infrastructure – we’ll look at how fundamentally dull, pedestrian things can turn into the most fascinating and rewarding design challenges.

      A reformed Londoner, Cath moved to Berlin this year after 2 years working in service design and customer development at Made by Many. She now leads product at ezeep, a company changing the way the world prints.

    • Natalia Berdys The web experience in the autistic spectrum

      Designing with cognitively-impaired users in mind can be very illuminative, leading to a broader understanding of the role of UX/UI design in general. In her talk, Natalia will focus on Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism, the perceptual issues involved for such web audience, and how their web experience can be the most sensitive test of good design.

      Natalia Berdys develops iOS apps, plays a lot of video games and gets high on information. She’s obsessively interested in language, numbers and hardware. Pinkish hair, oddball ideas.

    Tuesday, May 14th 2013, 7:30pm

    • Paulo Zoom Words of Matter

      Words are living things. We shape them with our collective usage, and we perceive them differently as we change. As people, they’re our interface with one another. And as designers, our most essential tool.
      In this talk, Paulo will explore how words impact our interfaces, affect our users’ behavior, and have the power to surprise and delight, but also to annoy and frustrate.

      Paulo designs websites. He’s working on The Manual and XOXO. That’s not his real name.

    • Hany Rizk UX & Product: How lean can you go?

      F**k it, ship it they say — but does that also apply when you’re working on a completely new product? This talk will revolve around releasing a Minimal Viable Product and all the complications that come with it: How do you know when your MVP is ready, and is less really more?

      Hany is a UX and Interaction Designer driven by minimalism, product strategy and bringing interaction beyond the screen. As a pianist with a passion for music, design, arts and humanities, Hany mixes those sources of inspiration with the technical challenges he faces to design intuitive and innovative solutions that are fun to use, shaken not stirred!

    • Daniel Mierzwinski Learning through goals

      With 2 months left of a 7 months internship Daniel wondered: Did he learn what he wanted to learn? His answer was no. In this talk Daniel will give you an insight into how he decided to spend the last 2 months of his internship and maximized his learnings.

      Daniel is a frontend developer with a passion for user experience and entrepreneurial business.

    Tuesday, April 9th 2013, 7:30pm

    At our April meetup, we had talks by Emma Rose Metcalfe, Tom O’Doherty and John Sebastian Hussey.

    • Emma Rose MetcalfeSocial Objects - the centre of our universe

      Whether it’s photo sharing, loops or tweets, the social object reigns queen of the web. Starting with Jyri Engeström as our centre point I’ll walk through findings from our own development in seeking the balance between accessible and precious design around social objects. How can we design platforms that lower barriers to create objects with long term social value?

      Emma Rose Metcalfe is a designer and co-founder of HowDo, a mobile platform where people capture, collect and share micro guides about the world around them. She heads up the product team and has a background in service and experience design.

    • Tom O’DohertyZombie video

      We all know that video is changing the internet, but we don’t think very often about how the internet is changing video. A short talk about a moving target.

      Tom is a freelance design and video person, originally from Ireland. He’s interested in design minimalism and succinct storytelling. And Japanese noise-rock.

    • John Sebastian HusseyWeb Performance as UX

      The mobile web audience is now huge. Mobile devices accessing the web, typically over a 3G connection, should have a lightening fast experience. This talks focuses on why web performance is more important than ever with some quick and easy ways to make sites faster and lighter.

      Full stack pancake engineer. Enthusiastic creative coder and web developer. Big hair, big ideas.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, March 12, 7:30pm

    Just like the first rays of spring sunlight after the long, drab Berlin winter, we too are finally reappearing in full force! Join us on March 12th for up.front 34, with a range of talks that could only be broader if it included something on hydroponics or dinosaurs.

    After the meet-up we’re heading to Lugosi (Reichenberger Straße 152), our favourite moody hideout, for casual lounging and tasty, discounted drinks.

    • Natalie HankeIntroducing Hexels, a new kind of art tool

      Developed by Hex-Ray Studios, Hexels is a new grid-based art program for Mac and PC, which allows you to paint with shapes. Since it launched a few days ago, this short talk will show you Hexels in action, provide some examples of already existing funky artwork and give some information on the two awesome guys behind it.

      Natalie is a freelance graphic designer who drinks a lot of coffee.

    • Alex FeyerkeHoodie - Building complete webapps without a backend

      A short presentation of a new app architecture for front-end people, and how you can use it to build web apps without worrying about the backend.

      Alex is a freelance web developer and internet generalist, and also one of the organizers of up.front.

    • Momme FundaLegal issues for web workers

      A quick run-through of various relevant aspects of German internet law, covering topics like imprints, coding in order to avoid copyright violations, “Abmahnungen”, contracts with clients and employers and copyright laws.

      Momme is a freelance lawyer specializing on media law. He works in a law firm made up of various other freelance lawyers, and he won’t be wearing a suit.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, February 12, 7:30pm

    Let’s get together!


    We will have a little get together at Lugosi (Reichenberger Straße 152) for casual lounging and tasty, discounted drinks. Join us to discuss the latest news or talk about your ideas.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

    Tuesday, January 08, 7:30pm

    Happy New Year everybody! Up.front will kick off 2013 with a panel discussion, starting on Tuesday, January 8, 7:30 pm at our favourite coworking space co.up.

    Follow us on Twitter for updates and RSVP on Facebook.

    • Skeumorphic Mess vs the Boring Flatlands: What’s a “Digitally Native User Interface”?

      Over the past years, we’ve witnessed a constant debate about competing trends in our field: Mimicking real world objects in user interfaces versus a revived flat approach, which the proponents label as more content-focused, digitally native and even honest.
      It’s time to put this into perspective. Is there more to this new flat trend than just a different level of polish and angry designer youth re-discovering modernism? How can a user interface be native and honest in the first place?
      We’ll look at different approaches and whether they’re relevant. To get a broader contexts of terms used in the discussion, we’ll not only discuss interaction design and usability, but also will have a look at art history and architecture.

    Up.front is a free event, and you do not have to register anywhere. However it gets packed sometimes. Doors open half an hour before the event, talks do not start before 7:30pm. Come early to make sure you get a seat! As usual, after the talks there’s time for conversations and tasty, discounted drinks at Lugosi, a cosy bar in walking distance from our venue.

    Accessibility: If you would like to use the lift, please tweet @upfront_ug when you arrive.

» See archive for previous events