Monday’s panels took on a very visual tint.

Opening the day was the arrival of the Texas Sun and a panel called “Shift Happens: Moving from Pictures to Words”:http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/talks/panels?action=show&id=IAP0900080. The panel featured some of the core brains behind the great “CommonCraft”:http://www.commoncraft.com/ explanation videos and “VizTalk”:http://www.vizthink.com/blog/ , two companies that are transforming how we explain complex issues and concepts by utilizing our basic need for visualization.

The entire talk resided around how corporations can utilize simple drawings and images to covey the complexity of ideas. Whether it is a brainstorming session on a company vision or to define a complex set of corporate strategies, the companies featured in this panel are aligning themselves with corporate companies to produce visual elements that make it easier for their customers or employees to understand.

A great example of this concept from the work that “Sunni Brown”:http://sunnibrown.com/ is doing via VizTalk. I’ve embedded a couple pieces of her work to give an example.

!http://sunnibrown.com/wp-content/themes/sunni/images/vois-thumbnail-sketch-1-440×338.jpg!

!http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D3qn1sofjqM/SPUqX4lAnxI/AAAAAAAAATo/xqNuVrvG-D8/s400/Virtuous+and+Vicious+Cycles.JPG!

The second panel of note was the final panel of the day called “Color Angels: It’s Not Just Black & White”:http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/talks/panels?action=show&id=IAP0900201 featuring three of the top Women Designers in the world. Of note was “Veerle”:http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/about/ one of the most brilliant designers in the industry and an inspiration to Armadillo Studios.

This panel discussed the use of Color in Web Design to help usability, resolve culture color difference and to enhance a corporation’s branding. The discussion touched upon ideas regarding the cultural differences in colour recognition and techniques to allow color blind users to read your web site.

As a designer these colour issues are sometimes forgotten. An example that was given was the difference in color layouts for a Chinese Wedding web site where Red means fortune, while the color white tends to represent death. Which is counter intuitive to North American tradition. Then the panel wrapped up by examining some case studies in colour design and the latest trends in the industry.

And with that the third day of panels was closed. With the sun shinning and the annual “Big British Meet-up”:http://sxsw.com/interactive/parties_and_lounges and the “NXNW”:http://raincitystudios.com/taxonomy/term/477 SXSW really kicked off.