Tell us a little about what IdN is trying to achieve with the conference:
Fresh Conference is a spirit of allowing idea exchange rather than a single event. And IdN Fresh conference 2001/ Sydney is aiming to initiate the idea exchange between Australian local design community and the rest.

What was the reaction to the Hong Kong conference from the audience and speakers:
Both the speaker and the conference attendees enjoy being involved in the conference. You can tell that some of our speakers are experienced speaker and have been talking in many other wed design conference. Yet, they count IdN Fresh conference Hong Kong as their fresh and valuable experience. The nature and the focus make the difference. IdN Fresh conference is keen on exploring the idea behind a good design rather than simply showing the technical steps behind a site. The most important is that the attendees appreciated the conference very much. We have received much encouraging feedback after the conference. Many of them said that they have been inspired by the speakers' presentations and widened their eye sight to design.

IdN has lately given a lot of support to the web design community... what role do you see IdN having in this community:
IdN is acting as a platform to enable the communication between the design community.

How do you see the design community online? What are its strengths and weaknesses:
Internet induces changes everywhere and design community is no exception. Internet allows the designers who have the passion and energy to explore on the projects that they are interested in without a consideration of commercial value inside the project, which is a good thing. We can see many new design, ideas and concepts. Before, the design communities are often owned by big companies. However, with internet, we have much less barrier in creating our own design community. And most importantly, these communities create quality work. We can see there is a growing number of design communities in the industry. There might be the threat of too many similar communities which might lack the uniqueness.

What is the criteria for who speaks at the conference:
We are looking for someone who are on the business and being full of energy to step forward. We think is can help to bring out the positive message and encourage more up and coming designer to do better to create a better design community.

The speakers that are coming back for a second time, are they coming back to speak about the same things because they were so good or is it that you expect them to have all new topics and work to talk about now:
We don't think we have to ( or not able to) cut the new and old definitely. As mentioned, we will choose someone who is keep going forward. Moreover, the web community is moving very fast. We believe all our speakers are able to demonstrate their new inspiration even they have been spoken a lots on web site design. It is convinced that design is a history. What a designer experienced in the past, no doubt feature his/her future design. So, it is meaning that prohibit them to say something which is exposed already.

Who is the conference aimed at most of all - designers/students/companies:
The conference aim at the content creators - anyone are welcome to join. Whoever would like to get inspired and aim at creating quality work, especially those who has their vision in web design.

What was the idea behind the name of the conference:
Fresh mean Fresh, something not spoilt yet. Fresh also means new, can be new ideas, new experience, new horizons, etc. The name is captured from one of the columns of our magazine introducing web design.

The Hong Kong conference was very 'Flash' orientated, is Sydney going to be more about all areas of design rather than just Flash:
Flash is like a photoshop online, which is great. We cannot deny Flash's important in web design. Methodology and craftmanship are vital to make good design. Fresh Conference is focused on inspiration, and flash is our tool to execute and turn the inspiration into concrete work. Nowadays, designers are not limiting oneself into one medium to express themselves. They try different things in different media. Different media has its own nature. And flash is one of the tools in the design arena.

What are the areas that you have tried to improve on from the Hong Kong conference:
The interactivity...The Hong Kong conference somehow are not interactive enough because of the culture here. We hope to strengthen the Q & A session and push more idea exchange between the speaker and the attendees.

Do you have any idea where the next Fresh Conference will be after Sydney:
We do not want to plan the conference... where it will be next, etc. IdN is like a creative brand, not commercial conference organizer. Fresh Conference is neither position itself as educational too. Rather, it is inspirational. And back to your question, it all depends.

Are you planing on going to every continent:
That's great if fresh conference could appear in all continents :P

In the same way as you did for the Hong Kong conference, do you plan to release any post conference material, such as a book or cd:
We had T-shirt last year. But people thinks that the yellow color is too ugly, and we are very put off :). This year, we are going to collect designers work, mainly from the speakers to do a CD rom, which is included in the Fresh Conference value pack, together iwth the ticket badge. We would like to give special thanks to all the designers involved. We love you!