We’ve all been talking about the trend toward content-driven design (that is, design in which the writing, messaging, videos, photos and related data—not the technology or look & feel—are considered first) lately, and for two good reasons:

The first is, it makes sense. You can’t write a paper without a thesis or paint a picture with any subject matter. Likewise, it’s a bad idea to design a website with no ‘thesis’ or ‘actual content’. Otherwise, it has been said, you are making a decoration and not designing.

The second is, what started as an industry trend has blossomed into a bona fide discipline that agencies, businesses and freelancers are taking seriously. Tons of cities in the US and beyond have content strategy meetups now, content strategy conferences are popping up everywhere, and who knows how many content strategist-web writer-IA-designer hybrids join our ranks monthly.

And take a look at this year’s SXSW Interactive’s PanelPicker, where more than 50 submissions are categorized under Content—not including all those content-related panels moonlighting as Design Thinking, User Experience or Social Media.

Content is on like the break of dawn.

Content and The Design Agency

And yet, from a design agency’s or client’s perspective, there is much to be taught and learned. After all, the approach to content-driven design that works for big enterprise-y projects won’t typically work for smaller ones. What works for a landing page or microsite won’t work for brochureware or a web app.

Making matters more difficult is the fact that most clients aren’t aware of this trend, much less our daily #contentstrategy machinations. What seems obvious to us in our lofty Technology Tower doesn’t always resonate with the people who pay us for our expertise.

All of this accounts for why I think it’s important for design agencies—not just content strategy people—to keep churning on this topic of content-driven design, sharing their insights and advice all the while. Maybe we’ll find new words to describe and ways of thinking about what we’re doing. Web design is still new after all, and there are approaches eagerly waiting to be thunk up.

Our SXSW Panel

With that in mind, I invite those of you who think about these things to take a look at the SXSW interactive panel we’ve submitted for 2011: Design, Meet Content: Exploring Content-Driven Design. It’s about this very topic, and it will involve a designer (my husband and business partner at thingsthatarebrown) + a content strategist (myself) talking about the mechanics of weaving good content and strategy into the web design process. We’ll use a few of our recent projects and some others as case studies. We’ll get specific. There might be joking.

If it looks good to you, we’d appreciate the vote.

Others’ Panels

And finally, there are about a million awesome-looking proposals in the mix this year, the most shiny of which I’ve included in a SXSW Panel Roundup on the thingsthatarebrown blog. Review them and get happy.

I definitely fist-pumped a little when Design Sponge agreed to let me write an article about project management for them.

If you’re not familiar, Design Sponge is an online magazine that showcases beautiful design—from DIY projects and tours of amazing homes, to product guides and podcasts with letterpress gurus, interior decorators, fashion designers, and more.

My favorite section is Biz Ladies, where entrepreneurs (who are ladies) from different industries give advice on how to run a biz. In my article there, I talk about project management: dealing with deadlines, handling clients, and staying calm when you’re at the helm.

Hope you like it!