Program

Ingrid will introduce the 3 themes of Design Matters 21:

POST-PANDEMIC DESIGN
How did the Post-pandemic change our design practice, influence our creativity, and what did it teach us?

COLORS!
What does color mean in design and how can colors be used in new and exciting ways? How do we deal with skin color and diversity in design?

THE DESIGN CODE
Generative design, AI-driven design, algorithmic design, and design systems are the new black for digital designers.

Illustrations are emerging as a vital part of the user experience of a product, as they help tell your brand story, articulate and communicate your values and brand personality. How do you create a successful illustration system, shaping a strong visual identity? How do you decide a core set of principles?

In this talk, Pablo Stanley discusses how the process of creating illustration libraries using the atomic design system method. He walks us through a brief history of illustration and comics in a designer’s creative journey and a look at how illustration has been applied in different products.

The last few speakers will be added to the program soon.

Stay tuned!

More than ever, data visualization needs to engage broad audiences, evolve beyond conventional chart types, and move beyond the usual infographics.

Stefanie will use examples from her practice to explore what a ‘post-infographic’ design approach might look like while sharing tips on how to communicate data with a spirit of openness and experimentation.

We are in the middle of forming the new paradigm of work, redefining our process, tools, and work ethics. Everything is new, but not everything is exciting.

The pandemic has given us video-conferencing fatigue, digital burnout, disengagement, and messy tools and procedures.

Companies and teams need to adapt to the new, and constantly changing environment, re-designing their work rituals and approaches, dealing with the new realities, and trying to gain enough resilience for the future. How might organizations survive and thrive in the long run?

Vlad Zely, Head of Design at Miro, the online collaboration whiteboard platform, will share his perspective on the Past and Future of Work while being at the forefront of creating a tool for millions of people across the globe to enable them to collaborate regardless of location.

SAGA Space Architects is a design + prototyping studio specialised in Space and Extreme environments. They have designed, built, and tested habitats all around the world. Most recently, they have built and tested an unfolding analog lunar habitat in Northern Greenland on a 100-day-long simulated moon mission.

In their ambition to be The Space Architecture Company, they are rapidly growing our capabilities of 3D construction printing. They do this by 3D-printed concrete structures on Earth. They just finished printing the largest 3D printed structure in Scandinavia, all with the ambition to familiarise us with the technology before doing it in space, since ISRU will inevitably be a key strategy in future moon colonies.

Join Sebastian, co-founder of SAGA Space Architects, in this Night Talk to learn more about their work and the possibilities that space tech and design can open in the future.

From moments of silliness and inspiration, into all the deep thinking and thematics behind storytelling in film, Inari will share her journey as an animation director and filmmaker.

Inari’s work challenges gender stereotypes, questioning identity and confronting the limitations set by society. Tones of surrealism and comedy meet in her mind-bending realities, whilst her unique character design offers personal and social truths about body image and beauty standards. Showcasing all manner of long, saggy, wrinkly, features with love and absurdity. She often poses the question, deep down can’t we all relate to a sausage? Maybe we do in more ways than we care to admit.

In her talk she will discuss the freedom of expression as well as the importance of comedy when dealing with difficult topics such as mental health and gender issues.

DJ Johanna, old friend of Design Matters will play some funky beats while preparing the audience for the concert.

After an intense day of learning, all you need is music! Whether you prefer to sit back and vibe or show off your moves on the dance floor, this is the right moment to get loose and have some fun!

Jane is an electronic R&B duo from Copenhagen, Denmark. Follow them on Instagram and give them a listen on Spotify!

Feels is a duo consisting of Siná Mousavian on the microphone and David Evers on keys. Feels has an incredibly smooth R’n’B sound, taking you through summer nights filled with drinks and good vibes – but also tracks that will follow you home in the dark as the party ends. They have had great streaming success across the Danish borders, especially in Canada, which shows their potential and will to go as far as possible.

Design systems are often positioned as a tool that helps you scale what’s working well today. The obvious risk is that it also makes it more efficient to stay in place— leading to a lack of innovation in your products. A design system shouldn’t be the ceiling for creativity. It should be the floor that teams can build on top of. To do this, design systems need to be resilient: built to change and evolve.

In this talk, Yesenia will share lessons learned from evolving a mature design system, and how to create design systems that are built to adapt. Topics will include system of systems architecture, theming APIs, and shifting the culture around the design system.

The pandemic left us all stranded and isolated; going through the motions of our lives without the daily moments of connection and collaboration we’d come to rely on. For the Content Design team at Zalando, this meant a sudden spotlight on the way they had been working: siloed at the end of the design process, yearning for a seat at the table.

For Chad Wright and Samantha Weingarten, Principal and Manager Content-Design-duo, the pandemic came with individual challenges. For Chad, it was navigating the imposterism around what it meant to be the first and sole Principal Content Designer at Zalando – from his bedroom. For Sam, it was learning what it meant to be an expat, a new mother, and Content Design Manager whilst living in rural Germany.

In this talk, you’ll learn about how they worked hand-in-hand, building on both their strengths and vulnerabilities, to define what collaboration between different kinds of leadership could look like at the end of the world (as we know it), and how together they launched a whole new way of working for their team– without ever meeting in person.

The way we work together has forever changed. Teams are in need of the best people, practices, and tools to collaborate together remotely, in the office, and a little bit of both.

In this hybrid event, join Nili Metuki, VP of Insights at InVision for a panel discussion featuring special guests from around the globe to learn how teams are thriving today.

The panelists will be:

Meriah Garrett – Chief Design Officer at USAA
Shawn Johnson – GVP of Product & Design at Discovery
Sara Keating – Design Director at Philips

In this talk, Erica will share the story of how her design team developed tools and processes to be used by 200+ developers and managed to remove UX bottlenecks and empower product teams to create high-quality designs.

This process required a transformation from a development-driven organization to a design-driven one, as well as connecting design and operations by sharing and expanding design intelligence throughout the organization.

Come behind the garage door and find out what makes Teenage Engineering tick.

Known as one of the most exciting engineering collectives in the world, they’re redefining the creative process and bringing together the physical and digital.