IXDA Brisbane 29th Sep 2022

This time last week was our last IXDA Brisbane for 2022. Our design community has been meeting over the last year to hear from design leaders & discuss all things design.

Last Thursday didn't disappoint with Matthew Grove talking about how designers are often under pressure to come up with new and innovative ideas that will wow their clients or break new ground in the industry. However, what exactly defines good design? Is it always about being flashy and unique, or can less actually be more? And how do you justify your design choices when they may be based more on personal preference than anything else? These are just a few of the questions he addressed and highlighted to attendees the importance of research-based design justification, how to push boundaries without compromising the quality of their work, and why sometimes less really is more.

Our second speaker of the evening was Phil Lew who started off with a unique icebreaker. We were split into pairs with one person being given a famous person card and the other an animal card and then asked to describe the animal if their traits were that of the person. It got us all interacting & thinking and was a lot of fun.

Phil then talked about how creativity is often thought of as a rare quality, possessed by only a handful of people. However, the truth is that everyone has the potential for creativity. It's simply a matter of learning how to break, bend, and blend the systems that constrain us.

Consider the systems that you encounter on a daily basis. There are the systems of your workplace, your home, your city, and your government. There are also the systems of language, mathematics, and physics. All of these systems impose order on our lives, but they can also restrict our thinking.

The key to unleashing your creativity is to learn how to break, bend, and blend. When you break a system, you challenge its assumptions and find new ways of doing things. When you bend it, you use it in unexpected ways to achieve your goals. And when you blend it, you create something new by combining elements from different sources.

You can learn so much when things don't work. So don't be afraid to experiment with the systems in your life. By doing so, you just might find new and innovative ways to achieve your goals.

I’m so proud of the design community we’ve built over the last 12 x months Isabella Jensen-Fielding and I have no doubt in 2023 we will continue to grow. Thanks to everyone who's supported us, our latest IXDA Brisbane leaders, Cait Hopper & Ashton Elliot and our partner Skedulo , David Isaacs & Paul Ciappara for giving us an amazing space to run our events in. IXDA Brisbane will be back in March, focusing on International Womens Day with a panel discussing some tough topics and an international guest speaker!