Thank you RGD for having me speak at this year’s Speak The Truth Design Thinkers conference.

RDG DesignThinkers 2018 Vancouver day 1 shot by Rick Etkin

I seriously had an amazing time speaking at this years RGD‘s ‘Speak The Truth’ design conference here in Vancouver. It is such an honour to be invited to such a fun and inspiring event! It was honestly very difficult to prep for this talk as our project workloads have ramped up significantly recently at the studio.

Prepping for this talk meant sneaking away from a kid’s birthday party to build the presentation slides, working weekends, early mornings, late nights and blah blah blah…but in the end, it was totally worth the time. I also need to thank my amazing design intern, Aiken Lao for her help on research and helping me fine tune my topic.

It was also one of the best conferences I’ve been to. I was so incredibly moved and inspired by talks done by giants like Aaron Draplin and then discovering the ultra-talented designer and illustrator, Gemma O’Brien from Australia. Both of those talks truly inspired me to rethink my work and processes. Once the craziness settles down at the studio, I am motivated to produce a new body of personal work. It’ll be a lot of tinkering and experimenting.

It was also so great to see so many familiar faces such as my old boss, Ian Grais, co-founder, partner and CD at Rethink, Brandon Thomas, Allison Chambers, Mustaali Raj, Philip Jarmain, Rick Etkin and much more. Also so great to meet so many new faces. And lastly, big shout out to my rock, Denise for being there to cheer me on with our little bean, Audrey (youngest design delegate!).