Megan Mead is an art director / designer / speaker in Austin, TX, currently under contract as a UX Designer at Visa, Inc. Her portfolio consists of print collateral, web and mobile site design, illustration, logos, and UX design for nationally recognized companies. Although her professional focus is on visual communication, Megan has always had a passion for performance. Having participated in numerous theatrical presentations over the past decade and several conferences in the past year, Megan has considerable experience with speaking in front of large crowds. Trained to better understand vocal, breath and acting exercises, she is very interested in how theatrical training can impact and supplement a designer’s career. She majored in communication design with a double minor in theatre and marketing, giving her a unique view point, straddling the world of performance and design.
Sessions
How NOT to Suck at Presenting Your Work
Thursday, May 7 • 4:15 – 5:00pm
As professional designers and art directors, we are paid to create smart, badass work. All too often, however, our hard work fails to get approved or our portfolio gets placed at the bottom of the stack simply because we didn’t present it effectively. In short, sometimes the better work loses out to the better sell. How well we present ourselves, our portfolios, and our ideas matters. The same meticulous thinking and passion that informs our strategies and our executions needs to affect how we tell the story of our work. If you’re slightly introverted and prone to stage fright, or if you simply want to brush up on your presentation skills, this interactive session was made for you. In it, you’ll learn more about the importance of giving your work the spotlight it deserves and come away with an array of storytelling strategies and acting techniques that will help you improve your presentation performance.
3 Main Takeaways:
- Bad presentations can kill good ideas—learn how to stop giving them.
- Improve your presentation performance with storytelling strategies and acting techniques.
- Better understand how presenting your work can impact your career.
