Speak the Truth- DesignThinkers 2018

2 November 2018

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the DesignThinkers conference in Toronto. Organized by the RGD, DesignThinkers is Canada’s only annual conference for visual communicators and is a must-attend for informed, forward-thinking creative communications and design professionals. This inspiring three-day event offered studio tours, an in-depth analyses of trends and best practices in branding, design thinking, design management, communications technologies and user experience with a range of networking opportunities to exchange ideas with other creatives.

The last time I attended this conference was in 2013 just after Design Is Yummy had officially grown from a one-woman show in my living room to a team of designers offering full service design solutions at our office in Lachine. We’ve come a long way in a few short years and it feels great to be back!

I started the trip off by visiting 8 studios from mammoths like Taxi and SidLee to smaller shops like Jacknife and The Office of Gilbert Li.

Me and Gilbert Li

Michael Bierut, famed designer and partner at Pentagram

There were over 2,000 at the conference with celebrated speakers from around the globe. More than just educational and inspiring talks, many of the speakers were accessible.

Posing with Adrian Shaughnessy, famed author of design book cult classic How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul

One of the trip highlights was having the opportunity to lunch with Jessica Hische (celebrated designer- she was recently cited by Creative Boom as one of the top 20 most influential graphic designers today, author- her beautiful kids book Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave just hit shelves), Josh Higgins (former Design Director for President Obama and currently Executive Creative Director for virtual and augmented reality products and hardware at Facebook), Alex Center (former Strategy and Design lead at The Coca-Cola Company), and fellow Toronto-based designer Ronnie (whom I had been introduced to through Scott Christie from BLVD Agency the previous night at the after party). Having the chance to chat one-on-one with these influential designers about design and life was something I’ll never forget. At the end of the day, despite their fame, they’re just good humans trying to make a difference in the world through their art.

As a mompreneur of essentially 2 toddlers (my business and my human child) the balance can sometimes be precarious. It’s a stressful path that I chose to run my own shop, but this conference really invigorated me creatively, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I am back from this action-packed trip feeling inspired and connected with the design community at large. I was almost taken aback by the outpouring of support upon returning home. I expected my team to hold down the fort and kill it in my absence (which of course they did!). They were super excited to hear all about what I had learned and seen and we immediately geeked out ogling the new design books and inspiring pieces I picked up at the conference (half a suitcase full!). What surprised me is that a few days after I got back one of our ongoing clients was in the studio to discuss new projects and expressed his support of our participation in these types of industry events; understanding the value of continuous education, professional growth and how this could ultimately benefit the work we do for them.

So thank you RGD, thank you DesignThinkers and (despite the Montreal-Toronto rivalry), thank you Toronto. It was amazing to be there and amazing to come home.