Speakers

Micah Smith began his career making shirts and posters for his favorite bands and now advises and creates campaigns for global brands like TED, Target, ESPN, and Pepsi. His work has been featured in books, magazines, and most recently on his mom’s refrigerator.

His talk, Quality Control: A Methodology for Meaningful Work, shares a handful of stories from his career that build to one central idea: don’t stress over what you can’t control, rather focus on the quality of what you can.

You’ll walk away with a clearer picture of how to find work that truly resonates with you, inspiration to follow your own path, and maybe even have some fun along the way.

The Journey is the Destination: Fake It Till You Make Stuff You’re Proud Of

In 2011, I saw a local band that changed my world: The Dirty Moogs. They were a blend of 1980s synth music and modern dance grooves, with a healthy dose of humor and lyrics so tight you could bounce a quarter off them. Determined to hitch my nascent interests in live performance visuals and video game development to their rising local stardom, I set out to woo them into letting me join the band as a member whose instruments were a laptop and a projector.

• Began by creating a mini 8-bit style video game to celebrate their EP “Peter Goes to Law School”
• Evolved into pre-rendered projections for their performance at Treefort 2013
• Began experimenting with live visuals, including building a Death Star trench game, which I played live as they performed at a dive bar in La Grande, Oregon
• First “big” show included old school red/blue 3D glasses used to see the visuals come alive (a story about show time failure and overcoming that in here as well)
• Evolved into more orchestrated, synced visual performances using MIDI controllers
Also designed album covers, t-shirts, posters, and band merch, including a second EP video game for “Back to Bits,” which was sold on USB drives at their shows
• Ultimately, proved to myself that I could do it