We celebrated all things design and reflected on the state of the design nation at SydDT #106 last Wednesday night. Ben Crothers and Nila Rezaei shared their highlights, observations, and insights on what they saw as a couple of the judges for this year’s Good Design Awards and some of the trends.
This has been an annual SydDT tradition since 2018 and it’s always a crowd favourite. This one was even bigger than usual with 220 people turning up for the fun. It was also another in our design megameetup series as Design Connection #3.
A massive thanks to Ben and Nila for their great talk. I had so many people telling me how they loved their content, insights, and presentation styles. I loved their perspectives and emphasis on how we can just do good design to help create positive impacts. In all of our work.
To close things out I reminded the audience that every design and business decision we make gets us closer to the world we want to see. Or not. Let’s do good design!
Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a fun night. Couldn’t make it or just want to relive it? It’s on Youtube now.
SydDT #106 was brought to you by Design at Macquarie, Sh8peshifters, and Dynamic4.
Design at Macquarie hosted us in the new and very impressive ILUMINA space. Steve Packham, the Chief Design Officer of Macquarie’s Corporate Operations Group shared a bit about how they’ve been investing in design and been building their design practice and community over the past year.
It was great collaborating with Design at Macquarie for this event. Thanks to Jen Han, Jenn Murphy, Kristine Souksamrane, and Steve for all the work on the Macquarie side to bring it together… to Kelvin Weng for taking photos, Lucy Zhao and the rest of the volunteers… and the AV guys for making everything run so smooth.
The graphic recording this month was done by Alan Chen and the video includes an impressive timelapse.
This initiative is a collaboration with Alan Chen and Diana Ayoub from Sh8peshifters and their Think Visual/Sh8peshifters Morning Meetups community. SydDT is a friendly environment for people to practice their live graphic recording skills. It’s also awesome seeing the growing number of people clustering at our meetups to sketchnote together.
This was also Design Connection #3… another in our design megameetup series – a collaboration with Kevin Wilkins, Sylvia Luk, and Lydia Bradshaw from CCX, Adam Faulkner from EUX, Susan Wolfe, and Vera Chan. And of course the rest of the SydDT crew Kylie Mageropoulos, Kate Linton, and Lucas Mara.
Our next meetup is SydDT #107/Design Connection #4: 2024 Reflection & Celebration on Thursday, 28 November… and brought to you by Atlassian and Dynamic4. Grab your ticket now!
Meetup Announcement
Wednesday, 6 November 2024 @ 5:30pm. ILUMINA at Macquarie Group, Sydney
We’re lucky to have Ben Crothers and Nila Rezaei sharing their reflections as a couple of the judges for the 2024 Good Design Awards. Since 2018, this has become an annual SydDT tradition and a time to reflect on the state of the design nation… full of interesting observations, insights, and trends.
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design community.
Good Design Australia has a proud history that dates back to 1958 and they’re passionately committed to recognising, rewarding, and promoting the importance of design to business, industry, government and the general public… and the critical role it plays in creating a better, safer, and a more sustainable and prosperous future.
Speakers
Ben Crothers
Principal Facilitator, Bright Pilots. Good Design Ambassador
Ben has been a designer since before Netscape ruled the www, and is currently a facilitator and design strategist at Bright Pilots (his online training and facilitation business), where he teaches teams of all sorts about design and facilitation methods, running strategic workshops, and generally helping teams get un-stuck. Previous to Bright Pilots, Ben was Principal Designer at Atlassian, a Design Director at Second Road (a strategic innovation consultancy), plus some assorted startups, agencies, and government departments.
Above all, Ben wants everyone to be just as good at the whiteboard as they are at the keyboard, to be better at thinking, communicating, and solving problems together visually. He’s the author of a few books, including Presto Sketching: Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design.
Nila Rezaei
Co-founder & Lead Designer, RK Collective. Good Design Ambassador
Nila is an Iranian-Australian industrial designer and educator, with a diverse background spanning industries, from manufactured consumer products to large-scale environmental and spatial design, site-specific products and installations to material design. Nila’s primary goal is to design solutions that not only fulfill utilitarian needs but also enhance the emotional connection between people and products, leaving a lasting positive social and environmental impact.
Her career began at Vert Design Studio, with diverse clients including entrepreneurs, startups, and multinational firms. Later she joined ZOOMO, an Australian Micro Mobility startup, as hardware product design lead, and the international Maynard Design consultancy, focusing on products and experiences for built environments. She recently founded RK Collective, as a response to a world increasingly confronted with environmental, societal, and ethical challenges, focusing on projects that are ‘deliberately’ innovative and balance culture, ecology, and commercial needs.
Her work has earned recognition from prestigious awards and has been showcased in various local and global presentations, exhibitions, and talks. Nila’s commitment to the Australian design scene extends to academia, teaching at UNSW in both Bachelor and Master degrees, serving as Deputy-Chair of the Design Institute Australia’s (DIA) NSW council. She is also a co-founder of IDX SYD (Industrial Design eXchange Sydney), fostering collaboration and connection among industrial designers in Sydney and beyond.
Steve Packham
Chief Design Officer, Corporate Operations Group, Macquarie Group
Steve is the Chief Design Officer for the Corporate Operations Group at Macquarie and has worked in financial services for 15+ years across New York, London, and now Sydney.
He’s an advocate for equipping people from all backgrounds and skillsets with everyday design skills. His passion for leveraging design practices across Macquarie has seen teams amplify their impact and elevated the role of design in digital experiences.
Note: Rachel Zhang was scheduled to speak but can’t make it now unfortunately… but we’re lucky to have Nila Rezaei step in!
Design Connection
Design Connection #3 is another in our design megameetup series.
Design Connection is a collective of three Sydney design meetups… Ben Pecotich from Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT), Adam Faulkner from Enterprise UX (EUX), and Kevin Wilkins from Creative Customer Experience (CCX), with Susan Wolfe and Vera Chan being the backbone of Design Connection 😃
Event Partners
This event is brought to you by Macquarie Group, Sh8peshifters, and Dynamic4.
