Yes, both of the partners of Hexanine will be speaking together at this year’s HOW Design Live. We’re super excited and ready to deliver the goods at our talk, and it’d be fun if you come too. We’ve always left the HOW Design events re-energized, inspired, and with tired arms from carrying cool swag. This year it’ll be in Boston from June 22-25 — clam chowder, that other historic ballpark, and that New England charm. What else do you need to know?

As speakers, we’re authorized to give you a super-secret promo code that will get you a $100 discount. Just enter HSPKR in the discount code box during the registration process, and HOW will deduct $100 from your total registration. Combine that with the March 30th Early Bird rate, it’s $170 off — that will buy a lot of Sam Adams beer! Can’t wait to see you there.

We’ve just received the proofs for our upcoming book, “Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects” and are fine-tooth combing one last time before the volume heads to the printer. We’re finalizing the details with our publisher, HOW Books, and everyone’s excited as the finish line draws near. We will be releasing some more images, spreads, and other sneak peeks of the book very soon, so be on the lookout.

At this year’s HOW Design Live conference, we got to take some time to chat with our friends at HOW about creativity, inspiration, and why we go to events like this one. This year’s Chicago experience was amazing, and we’re looking forward to attending in Boston next year as HOW authors, as well! Here’s a little edited tease of great HOW authors and creative personalities, including James Victore, Sally Hogshead, Darius Monsef, ourselves, and more.

Update: The Damn Good call for entries deadline has been extended to Monday, February 28th, 2011. More info here.

We are super excited to announce the official call for entries to our upcoming book, Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects. Hexanine has partnered with HOW Design Books and Crescent Hill Books to deliver this design inspiration book, our very first!

In thinking about what separates great design from the crowd, we recognized that passion drives the best design work, and this book will provide an opportunity for designers to explain, discuss, and brag about the work that represents their favorite projects. Any work you’ve done, in brand identity, packaging, print, interactive, or another category is fair game. Submissions aren’t limited by their launch date — your projects could have been developed last month, last year, or whenever.

Also, we’re doing something rather unique in this space — one chapter will feature ‘axed projects’ — great work that you loved, but the client rejected. Whether it was recession budgets, conservative clients, or office politics that shelved your project, now is your chance to show it to the world. Axed projects will be featured in our “Cutting Room Floor” chapter so they can live again.

There’s no cost to enter (just a $25 publication fee for chosen entries) and all submissions will be judged by us, the Hexanine partners, Tim Lapetino and Jason Adam. We’ll select more than 100 projects, and 12 will be chosen for case studies, devoting two pages and an interview to your specific design entry. Damn Good will also be distributed internationally and sold in more than 20 countries. You can get more details about the book itself from our PDF info sheet.

So, create an account at Crescent Hill’s online submission site and submit your work! The deadline for entries is February 14, 2011.

We’ll have more information as we move closer to the book’s Winter 2011 launch, including some exclusive sneak peeks. We’ll also give some insight into the design process, and what it takes to judge a book like this. Stay tuned, and stay Damn Good!

Edits: The number of case studies has been changed to 12, and the book’s title is now “Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects“.