Last week I made my way to Imperial College London for the I Love Design 8x8 event. The basic premise was 8 speakers who could each talk for 8 minutes about their ideas, inspirations and motivation. Similar in theory to the Pecha Kucha format but with a bit more flexibility, it kept the presentations varied, interesting and, well, nicely concise.

The speakers invited were well chosen, ranging from a couple of recent-ish and very successful graduates HudsonBec, via design pro Vaughan Oliver, to the youngest ever Black Pencil winner Matt Dent. The evening was hosted by Ben Terret, author of the Noisy Decent Graphics blog and partner at Really Interesting Group.

Which brings me nicely onto this. Actually, Tristan has already written about it here, but I like it a lot so I'll mention it again quickly. Really Interesting Group made a limited edition newspaper called Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008, 'Like a Daily Me, but slower'. It's beautifully designed, and packed with great ideas. Read more about it here.

NB:  The headers in the newspaper contain tweets. The header in top right image says 'sometimes I wish milk with tea was a food'.

John Bateson of Likemind and Bateson Studio was a compelling speaker, and really likable. He showed us and spoke about things gathered from his home that excited him, made him curious, angry or emotional, which have driven him in lots of directions.

His first love was the beautiful sitter in La Grande Odalisque, an erotic painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres that received mass criticism in the early 1800's for it's inaccurate depiction of the human body. But it was her enlarged bottom, one long draping arm and about 5 extra vertebrae that contributed to her allure. This painting led him to start drawing, and getting paid for it too. John Bateman's early works would go for 1p a pop - signed - in his infant school playground.

He also showed us a slide of Roger McGough's poem '40 - Love', a poem about tennis and the tension between a couple. The poem is split between two pages of a book, with the book's gutter symbolizing the net and the divide. It was one of the first things that got John really excited about typography, and judging by his slides and talk he still carries that same enthusiasm today.

Alex Bec and Will Hudson make up creative studio HudsonBec. I was especially pleased to see them speak as they run the blog It’s Nice That, which I follow daily, providing a constant source of inspiration. Alongside running this hugely popular blog they have worked with, amongst others, Picador, Nike, and the V&A, and they are only 2 years out of college. They used their 8 minutes to talk about 8 things that inspire them. One inspiration being a set of Alan Keys by Brighton student Pete Dungey, inscribed with the names of Britain's most popular Alan's (Titchmarsh, Lilly, Partridge, Carr).

Their last inspiration was this letter of advice from Alex's uncle, which he received on his 21st birthday. I particularly like 'avoid blue food or very long food', but I'll leave you with 'Be good and know what good is'.