Alt Summit Highlights

For me, the best part of Altitude Design Summit was seeing this event I'd worked on with my heart and soul come together so beautifully. For ages and ages I've been craving a gathering of design bloggers — to talk shop, meet in real life, and just feel more like the community that they are. To see it come to fruition was a wonderful as I hoped it would be.

I'm eternally grateful to everyone who enthusiastially attended, prepared presentations, helped with organization and made the conference fantastic. I can't wait till next year. Can't wait.



Some highlights I don't want to forget:

-Getting to know many, many blog authors I'd been reading for years.

-Seeing people loving their welcome bags — you can get a peek at the contents here.

-The red carpet (with paparazzi!) and cigarette girls at the Old Hollywood Party. Plus fantastic live music by Dana Parish.



-Being inspired at the keynote breakfast — the speakers were so interesting:
Dooce announced her new deal with HGTV that day.
Maxwell from Apartment Therapy is in the middle of a big window design contest. You can vote twice a day (by text and by computer) here (go vote!).
Jean from NotCot paid a visit to a super cool (as in ice) Sundance party the night before.
And Grace talked a little bit about the new design she's working on for Design*Sponge.
All very exciting.

-Seeing Erik Natzke's gorgeous artwork come to be during the keynote lunch.



-Watching the audience get super-psyched during DJ Earworm's presentation. (This video is a mashup he created from the the top 20 Billboard hits of 2009.)

-Reading the tweets that were coming from the Alt Summit attendees from the slopes of Solitude on Saturday.




-Talking in the hotel lobby bar till super late every night. The venue was stunning. Absolutely 5-star service. On the day I checked in, my sister Sara arranged for the hotel to bring this grand piano to my room. Grand piano as in Grand America. Nice. It's completely made of chocolate. And there were truffles hiding inside. Maxwell took lots of great pictures of the hotel — see here.



The official event photographer, Brooke Dennis, is still uploading photos to flickr. But you can see my Alt Summit photos here. Also, if you want to read more about the conference, here are some excellent wrapups:

From Victoria of sfgirlbybay
From Liz of Say Yes to Hoboken
From Karey of Mackin Ink
From Ellie of Mint
From Joy of Oh Joy!