On Tuesday May 12th, our premier pixelSessions event will follow a theme of Inspiration. Inspiration has a heavy meaning, and it is the foundation of our daily lives as creative professionals. How do you stay inspired? What fuels your creativity? What gets you out of bed in the morning (or keeps you up late at night)? Where do you find the energy to tackle a myriad of design problems in innovative ways? Our speakers will discuss what inspires them and how they keep their work fresh and new. pixelSessions 1.0 will be hosted at MIGHTY in SOMA, (Google Map: 119 Utah St., San Francisco).

• Tuesday, May 12th, 6:00pm-10:30pm

• 6:00pm - Registration, Hosted Bar, and Snacks

• 7:00pm - Speakers and Q&A (bar closed)

• 8:30pm - Hosted bar, and networking

Tickets are $25 A limited number of tickets are now open to the public! Get them while they last. Transportation: There's a good amount of parking in front of and around the venue. Metered parking is free after 6pm as well. Also, the 22, 19 and 9 buses will get you within a block or two of Mighty.

About the Panelists

Jared Ficklin – Principal Technologist, Frog Design Although Jared is a known technologist and Flash guy - he has multiple creative interests and endeavors. About Jared: he is a Principal Technologist for frog design, where he has been creating Flash of all types for eight years. Having worked professionally with digital technologies and Flash for Ten years, his current focus is User Experience Design and the Rapid Prototyping of Device User Interfaces. A passion for musical performance outside of professional life lead to the hobby of using Flash for Sound Visualization. Along with having appeared as the Grand Marshall for the Denver St. Patrick’s day parade, Jared plays guitar with his twin brother in their Geek Rawk band John Galt, is the Executive Co-Director of the Austin Public Skatepark Action Committee, appeared on PBS as a participant on Texas Ranch House, and is an Eagle Scout.

Jenny Hansen – Creative Director, SuperSecret We are super excited to welcome Jenny Hansen as one of our charter speakers for the first pixelSessions event. Jenny Hansen has worked as a background painter and color designer in the SF Bay Area animation industry since graduating from the Academy of Art University’s MFA program. Beyond the visual, it is the decisive direction of story–from the larger relevance to the subtext and detailed theming–that she specializes in cultivating.

Josh Ulm - Director of Experience Design, Adobe Josh has created award-winning work for numerous clients including the International Olympic Committee and Microsoft. As an independent consultant his clients have included companies like Samsung and Sony and currently he leads Adobe’s XD team of 100+ design professionals. He has been personally profiled by Wired magazine and his work has appeared in Communications Arts several times; he presents frequently at industry events; and he’s contributed to numerous design and Internet books including a recent contribution to Mobile Persuasion, a collection of perspectives on mobile design from Stanford University. Early on, Josh gained international recognition for his pioneering work establishing The Remedi Project - a first of it’s kind, award-winning, online gallery for interactive art.

Michael Ernst - Creative Director, Yelp
As Yelp’s first and only designer, Michael was brought on from the beginning to give Yelp its look and feel. Transforming it from a virtually nonexistent site four and a half years ago to a well-loved brand with over 20 million people visiting monthly today, Michael creates everything from Yelp’s user interface and web design to its collateral, advertising, t-shirts, and pretty much anything else that needs to look pretty. Michael comes from a small agency background in Wisconsin where he received his bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from UW Madison. He worked on a wide variety of clients before leaving the cheese curds and beer behind and making San Francisco his home.

With their combined experience and copious amounts of creativity, attendees are sure to get inspired at pixelSessions 1.0. Each guest will speak about their inspiration and we will open up to Q&A afterwards.