2024 Speakers
Challenging the Norm, Your Clients and the Design Industry
Ade Chong
Creative Director, Studio Chong
Challenging the Norm, Your Clients and the Design Industry
Challenging norms and making bold choices at every step has hugely informed the award-winning work of Studio Chong, a small-by-choice, remote-first, inclusive, studio collective delivering striking campaigns for clients as diverse as Google, Havana Club, The Public Spirit, Known Source, McMiller Toys, London Northwestern Railways and Virgin.
How do we stay ambitious and break new ground? How do we challenge ourselves and our collaborators? What are the foundational differences that make a unique creative business? How do we prepare and lead and our clients? How do we guide them to make brave choices that build culturally relevant brands that stick?
Using examples from her own work and career, Ade Chong will address these questions and explain how boldness, imagination, leadership and the drive to find happiness have brought joy to the work, stunning brands, and sustainable success for her clients.
About Ade
Creative Director at Studio Chong. Ade works the boldest consumer brands that are up on the rise. She has grown agencies, built brands, turned businesses around and bagged a heap of awards on the way — including being named 'Future Leader' by Campaign.
Hairy Arms, Painting Ducks and Design Decisions
Convincing someone else of our design decisions is difficult. It can be so difficult, in fact, that we’ll do almost anything to make sure that we don’t have to make changes we disagree with.
But from simple psychology to outright deception, not all tactics are created equal. We need to find ways to be persuasive with stakeholders without using trickery. Actually, the same approaches we champion with users of our products are also helpful in our meetings about design.
Learn how to manage the conversation through effective techniques that will help others agree with our choices while maintaining the integrity of the user experience.
About Tom
Tom Greever has been designing interfaces and leading design teams for 20 years. His experience as a UX designer, executive design leader, and consultant has given him a broad perspective on how better communication yields great design. He has coached and mentored teams on design practices and communication all over the world, including Porsche, Facebook, JP Morgan Chase, and more.
Designers as Agents of Societal Change
The Power of Challenging the Status Quo, Learning, Collaboration and Mentorship in Driving Innovation
For Rejane Dal Bello, ‘Design is everywhere. Design is for everything’ and design has a pivotal role as an act of leadership influencing communication and culture. Designers not only bear a social responsibility to drive changes, but possess real power to play a positive role in answering society’s different and challenging needs.
Reflecting on her own body of work, Dal Bello will discuss how we can create work that is meaningful to the job we are hired to do.
“Our job is to clearly communicate my clients beliefs in striking, moving, and effective ways and the work must be memorable and identifiable. If it is clear and recognisable it will be recalled faster. Big successful brands always have a central idea and sentiment at their core.”
Tracing her own career journey, Rejane will identify the right conditions for success: from the power of learning, collaboration, mentorship and learning through the design process to challenging the status quo and leading clients and winning them over through the scary stages. “Brave work is not crazy work. Brave work is when you see the possibilities of doing something that pushes expectations but is still within the client’s best interests’’.
About Rejane
Rejane Dal Bello is a world-renowned graphic designer, AGI member with a history of iconic work and founder Studio Rejane Dal Bello. She has +20 years of experience in graphic design and branding, including stints at renowned agencies such as Wolff Olins (UK) and Studio Dumbar (NL), and recently she wrote the ‘Citizen First, Designer Second‘ book and created the first book series that helps children cope with illness ‘Dr. Giraffe’.
Rejane studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and did her MA is Social design at St Joost Art Academy in Holland where she also afterwards taught at the MA and BA level. Her work has won awards and is displayed in the V&A Museum, Wellcome Collection Museum in London and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Holland. Rejane’s work is regularly featured in publications, and she also gives workshops and lectures around the world.
Harnessing Behavioural Sciences in the Business of Influencing Decisions
Anyone who works in design is in the business of influencing decisions. But how can you do that without understanding what drives them?
Every day, people make hundreds of choices. These choices might appear to be freely made, but psychologists have shown that subtle changes in the way products are positioned, promoted, and marketed can radically alter how customers behave, according to Richard Shotton’s “The Illusion of Choice”.
In this talk, acclaimed behavioural psychologist and author, Richard Shotton, will give you an overview of the field of behavioural science as it applies to design.
After introducing a simple framework to make sense of academic findings, Richard will show how they can be applied on a daily basis, and how psychological biases can be leveraged to frame your brand offer to win over customers and clients but also support leading decisions in the design process and convincing stakeholders. We'll cover some of the classic experiments that reveal the fascinating ways in which the human mind makes decisions about behaviour, as well as new and lesser-known research that will give you the edge.
About Richard
Author of ‘The Choice Factory’.
Richard Shotton is the Founder of Astroten, a consultancy that applies findings from behavioural science to marketing.
He has worked in marketing for 23 years and helps brands such as Google, Mondelez and BrewDog find solutions grounded in psychology and behavioural science evidence to their challenges and turn insights into effective design, business and marketing strategies.
He is the author of ‘The Choice Factory’, a best-selling book available in 14 languages, which explains how behavioural science can solve business challenges.
Which way is up? Shaping better collaborations
Designers can’t solve the world’s most pressing challenges alone. From the climate crisis to the effects of social inequality, these challenges facing us are as urgent as they are immense. It takes organisations working together to make a difference. Such collaborations are always complex, constantly evolving and tricky to sustain.
What makes some flourish and others falter?
That’s what Jess Majekodunmi and Accenture’s Human Sciences Studio set out to answer. From CEOs to project managers, they studied a range of collaborators across multiple continents, industries and sectors. In this talk, Jess will unpack the deeply human factors and behind-the-scenes mechanisms that are instrumental in setting up and running effective collaborations.
The findings are fiercely pragmatic, sometimes surprising, and ultimately inspiring. Because if we get this right, everybody wins.
About Jess
Jess is both an accomplished design historian and an experienced innovation designer, with a career that has spanned continents and sectors. Her fierce belief in the vital role of the human sciences and the arts in technology has led her to where she is today - Director of the Human Sciences Studio at The Dock, Accenture's flagship global R&D centre. Jess is also a board member of the Irish Writers Centre and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
The Client/Designer Creative Relationship
Darrell Kavanagh
Co-Founder & Managing Director, Image Now
The Client/Designer Creative Relationship
David McRedmond (CEO, An Post) in conversation with Darrell Kavanagh (MD, Image Now)
As CEO since late 2016, David has led An Post’s transformation programme and return to financial stability, sustained revenue growth and profitability, and is personally driving An Post’s sustainability charter. David believes passionately in the power of enduring and powerful design.
As Co-Founder of Image Now 30 years ago, Darrell has led the brand consultancy to create iconic work for Riverdance, MTV, DAA, PTSB, BBC and RTE.
Beginning with the hugely symbolic refresh of An Post’s iconic brand in 2019, Image Now has had a long and successful design lead relationship with An Post.
In a moderated discussion, David and Darrell will explore together how brand and design is helping drive change and success for the organisation and how their close Client/Designer creative leadership fits into An Post’s ambition to be a positive force in Irish society now and for generations to come.
About Darrell
In his graduation year, Darrell set up Image Now Consultants with two fellow graduates. For the last three decades he has sustained that momentum, advising and directing clients on design, brand and vision strategies. He is an internationally recognised authority on the strategic value of compelling corporate design and the role it plays in business, government and society. Practical commercial experience of working in this area has been the focus of his career as a facilitator, designer, consultant and corporate brand design director.
As Co-Founder of Image Now 30 years ago, Darrell has led the brand consultancy to create iconic work for Riverdance, MTV, DAA, PTSB, BBC and RTE.
Darrell has established a remarkable track record working with business leaders in semi-state and large corporate rebrands. Notable projects include the repositioning and rebranding of A Post, Ibec, RTÉ 2fm, Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail, National Parks (NPWS), MTV, Vodafone and the recent PTSB rebrand. Darrell’s experience in resolving, simplifying and communicating clear brand requirements for environmental spaces that underpin major brand strategy solutions is hard to match.
The Client/Designer Creative Relationship
David McRedmond (CEO, An Post) in conversation with Darrell Kavanagh (MD, Image Now)
As CEO since late 2016, David has led An Post’s transformation programme and return to financial stability, sustained revenue growth and profitability, and is personally driving An Post’s sustainability charter. David believes passionately in the power of enduring and powerful design.
As Co-Founder of Image Now 30 years ago, Darrell has led the brand consultancy to create iconic work for Riverdance, MTV, DAA, PTSB, BBC and RTE.
Beginning with the hugely symbolic refresh of An Post’s iconic brand in 2019, Image Now has had a long and successful design lead relationship with An Post.
In a moderated discussion, David and Darrell will explore together how brand and design is helping drive change and success for the organisation and how their close Client/Designer creative leadership fits into An Post’s ambition to be a positive force in Irish society now and for generations to come.
About David
David McRedmond was appointed Chief Executive Officer of An Post in October 2016. As CEO, David has led An Post’s transformation programme and return to financial stability, sustained revenue growth and profitability. He is personally driving An Post’s sustainability charter. David believes passionately in the power of enduring and powerful design.
He was previously CEO of TV3 which he transformed into a major Irish broadcaster, concluding with its sale to Liberty Global, and he has held senior commercial roles in Ireland, the UK and the US. He is chairman of Eir, a lifetime Fellow of the Irish Management Institute and of the Royal Society of Arts.
Climate Change: The Design Challenge of Our Time
Design Declares is a growing group of designers, design studios, agencies and institutions here to declare a climate and ecological emergency. As part of the global declaration movement, we commit to harnessing the tools of our industry to reimagine, rebuild and heal our world.
As designers working within an industry that relies on production and powers global consumption, we must acknowledge that we have had a role in bringing us to where we are now, and that we have an important role in what comes next.
Launched in 2023, Design Declares Ireland is the first global chapter of the Design Declares movement. A multidisciplinary group of design professionals, we believe in the power of design to change things.
About Lara
Lara is a dynamic problem solver, creative thinker, and founder of Portion Collaborative—a design-led consultancy transforming food systems through creative disruption. Formerly a Senior Designer at IBM, she empowered global teams, spearheaded design practices, and collaborated with major clients like Unilever, Walmart, and Coca-Cola.
Lara's passion for food sustainability led her to complete a Sustainable Business Strategy program at Harvard Business School Online and acquire a Food and Sustainability certification from The European Institute of Innovation and Sustainability. Lara is an educator and has held part-time tutoring positions at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) across various programmes including Interaction and User Experience Design, Design Thinking, and Visual Communications Design. She has also lectured at renowned institutions including the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Lara actively contributes to the global design community and is a steering committee member at 100 Archive and Design Declares Ireland. She has delivered talks for TEDx, Creative Mornings, and her work has been featured by FastCompany, Dezeen, Offscreen Magazine, and published by Bloomsbury Publishing NYC.
Moderator: The Client/Designer Creative Relationship
David McRedmond (CEO, An Post) in conversation with Darrell Kavanagh (MD, Image Now) moderated by Danielle Townsend
As CEO since late 2016, David has led An Post’s transformation programme and return to financial stability, sustained revenue growth and profitability, and is personally driving An Post’s sustainability charter. David believes passionately in the power of enduring and powerful design.
As Co-Founder of Image Now 30 years ago, Darrell has led the brand consultancy to create iconic work for Riverdance, MTV, DAA, PTSB, BBC and RTE.
Beginning with the hugely symbolic refresh of An Post’s iconic brand in 2019, Image Now has had a long and successful design lead relationship with An Post.
In this discussion, moderated by Danielle, David and Darrell will explore together how brand and design is helping drive change and success for the organisation and how their close Client/Designer creative leadership fits into An Post’s ambition to be a positive force in Irish society now and for generations to come.
About Danielle
Currently Danielle is working within the design sector with clients to support initiatives that assist new entrants while still designing and executing large-scale commercial projects. She has taught across several design programmes supporting the development of self-directed design projects that further typographic standards.
Danielle is a Board Member of the IDI, an assessor of the International Society of Typographic Designers, 100Archive and the IDI Graduate Awards. She leads on Education at IDI and is a co-creator of Graduate platform, The New Now.
One Year On - Leading Innovative Design for a More Accessible Future
At last year’s conference, Noel Joyce captivated us all with the design of his open-source adaptive mountain bike. For the last twelve months, he has been working in collaboration with engineering design students in NYU in Shanghai and other locations to develop his design for open-source manufacture. See the latest running prototype and hear Noel speak about how he is bringing his design to a truly global audience. Video presentation.
About Noel
When a mountain biking accident ended his career in the military and left him confined to a wheelchair Noel went back to education to study Industrial design. He went on to utilise his newfound skill set to become an entrepreneur bringing to life a number of small hardware-based startups.
Travelling to and working in Shenzhen, China he subsequently went on to become head of design at HAX a hardware startup accelerator where he worked with over 200 startups in the areas of robotics, medical devices, consumer products as well as many more industries considering the business needs of these startups as well as their design needs.
An advocate of design as a problem-solving activity and a keen interest in creating solutions to difficulties around many issues, Noel utilises his unique prism of living both with and without a disability to create solutions to complex problems.