In the last week of May, winner of our Share Your Story contest, ORA, sent Andre Doucette to DesignThinkers Vancouver 2017. A huge thanks to RGD for providing us with the ticket to send one of our members!

We asked Andre to give us a review of the conference so that if we have other members considering attending, they’ll have a review straight from a member that has attended. Below is Andre’s experience at DesignThinkers:

“Design Thinkers is a yearly conference bringing together the greatest brains in graphic design. Over 2 days, many of the biggest names in design give 40 minute talks about their journey becoming a designer, many examples of their work, and some of the big lessons they’ve learned over the years. Most of the speakers were graphic designers by trade, though there were a few Product and Experience designers scattered throughout.

Hearing the design journey of some of the biggest names in design was inspiring and empowering. We heard from speakers from IDEO, Airbnb, Buzzfeed, Adobe, and Autodesk, in addition to designers who worked on SNL, Abstract (the Netflix documentary), and the New York City redesign. These world class leaders in design bring a new level of perspective to the craft of design, and give aspiring designers new ways to think about the work that they are doing.

As a Product Designer with little background in graphic design, the content wasn’t directly related to my day-to-day work, but it was still incredibly valuable to me. It gave me a new respect for the challenges and opportunities in the graphic design field, and showed me how the craft of design has many of the same foundations in the different kinds of design (graphics, animation, UI, experience). Thank you so much for the opportunity to represent Saskatchewan at this world class venue.”

Thanks so much Andre for sharing your experience and we hope this helps other members see what a great opportunity DT is when you’re planning out your conference season next year. DT is also held in Toronto in the fall so if you’d like to try it out this year, visit their website to get your tickets today.