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A keynote speaker welcomes the crowd at Made by Few web design conference at the Ron Robinson Theater in Downtown Little Rock on Oct. 3, 2015.
Creatives, web developers and designers of all sorts, get your little black book planners, iPads, sketchbooks, or whatever you take notes on out. Little Rock’s popular creative conference Made by Few is moving up to Bentonville this year the weekend of Oct. 26-29.
Made by Few started five years ago as a conference to inspire and provide networking for designers, developers, creatives, and entrepreneurs in the startup economy culture. Several workshops, guest speakers and events are planned for attendees to participate in.
The event will be spread out in venues of downtown Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas, but the main event is being held at the brand new venue, The Record, near the Bentonville square, which used to house the newspaper offices of the Bentonville Daily Record, as well as Crystal Bridges and 21c Hotel.
This year’s keynote speakers include PayPal’s Product Design Lead Victoria Prater, Cassie McDaniels of the Mozilla Foundation, Daniel Burka of Google Ventures, Cards Against Humanity’s Design Director Amy Schwartz, Alex Cornell of Facebook and James Victore, just to name a few.
“Our mission is to inspire the creative community in Arkansas,” said Arlton Lowry, founder of Made by Few, “work against the perceptions of our state and put Arkansas on the map as a creative, fun place to be to the people who come from all over to be here.”
The speeches range in content variety from managing inspiration, working remotely and influencing remote communities, balancing multiple projects at once and discussing design from top level of the system.
On Wednesday Oct. 26, at 6:30 p.m. a “fireside chats” event is planned at Sassafras Winery in Springdale, where several regional and national designers will speak about “the connection between work and play.”
“I spent a lot of time exploring this area, trying to find the perfect venues,” Lowry said. “(Sassafras Winery) is gorgeous. It’s going to have a very good impression on people.”
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Keynote speakers from all over the country from companies such as Spotify, PayPal, Facebook and Google are regulars to the Made by Few conference.
Friday night also features the Designed by Few competition at 21c Hotel, where three designers compete for a cash prize as they do design work benefiting local non-profit ArtFeeds. There will also be a Halloween costume contest, music, food and drinks. Saturday night will be the afterparty, with live music from Adam Faucett and the Tall Grass.
Tickets to conference are available online at madebyfew.com and are $424.22 for a full pass, $186.37 for students and $212.80 for a day pass. Ticket sales will cap off at 300, Lowry said.
There will also be Handmade by Few, which will be open to the public for free, from the folks behind The Little Craft Show. Some of the artisans at the craft fair will be Sally Nixon, Big Bot, Chipper Things, Hello Cocoa, KYYA, Jason Jones, Sara L. Walker, Arsenic and Lace and several others. The show will be at The Record during the main conference, starting at 8:30 a.m.
“We really want to make an experience,” Lowry said. “We want to control what people see, how they see it, who they interact with. When you have chaos happening, we try to make an amazing experience that showcases the state really well and provides an awesome opportunity dynamic for individuals. You’re going to get a curated and thoughtful experience.”
All of the speeches given at the conference will be uploaded online for free viewing following the conference, as previous years speeches have been, Lowry said.
To no surprise, there is an impressively designed website with more info surrounding the conference at madebyfew.com.
