Looking back at the Design Summer Sessions 2024 – Festival of Learning for Creatives

For the third consecutive year, we hosted our Design Summer Sessions, a festival dedicated to learning for designers and creatives. This year, we explored crucial themes such as standing out in a competitive industry amidst AI and new technology, business and brand growth, protecting creative work for creatives SMEs and Fashion designers, guiding clients on a more ethical and sustainable journey and articulating the value of design to drive business impact.

Here’s a heartfelt thank you to our speakers and trainers who made this event a success with their nuggets of wisdom:

• Jeannette Naughton who shared her insights on transitioning from a design professional to a successful studio owner, emphasising that growing a creative business requires shifting your mindset from working in your business to working on it. Jeannette notably stressed the importance of a solid financial and time management plan, a support ecosystem (team, contractors, peers) and a strategic marketing and sales process. For those needing further guidance, Jeannette offers one-on-one coaching and a full roadmap to growth through our Designs on Growth Programme 2025.
• John Milligan provided an in-depth look at intellectual property (IP) protection, covering everything from trademarks to registered designs. His session included insightful real-life case studies, illustrating how to successfully navigate and win IP cases.
• Renata Dima offered practical advice on enhancing professional profiles. To stand out in the competitive creative industry, there is no two ways about it, creative professionals need to craft their professional charisma through LinkedIn, portfolios resumes and a proactive job strategy. Renata’s key takeaway: Keep it simple, align your goals with your target organisation, speak the business/stakeholders’ language and use storytelling and 5 seconds elevator pitches to let your personality shine. Data is king: a data-driven approach are crucial to landing your dream roles. She also highlighted that building a strong community network guarantee your chances to get the first foot in the door.
• Kate O’Moore from MAKER and Kevin King from Piquant discussed building scalable brands that attract clients and top talent. They emphasised the importance of having a unique vision, mapping out a strong value system (and staying true to these values!) and establishing trust with clients through true human partnerships and a public image suited to your niche. They also both tied in their brands’ sucesses to surrounding themselves with the right ecosystem support and teams to bounce ideas off and diversify their skillset and only investing creative work, time and money when it was really valuable. They encouraged stepping out of comfort zones to build confidence and your own very personal brand, with the reminder that “you’re not an imposter, you’re only growing.”
• James Hall explored the competencies of effective design leadership and the role of design in strategic business partnerships. He discussed how to influence stakeholders by connecting design strategies to corporate goals and justifying the business impact of design initiatives through storytelling and articulating the value of design capabilities in maximising customer experience, bring return on investement for the organisation and positive societal impact as a whole.
• Valentina Antunovic, Riccardo Spina, Niamh Fahey and Conor Normile delved into how AI is transforming UX design, the most recent main AI tools for UX Designers and their limitations, the essential AI-related skills for designers and the new career paths emerging in this dynamic field. While AI tools offer new opportunities, they unanimously emphasised that intrinsequely human skills like intuition, creativity, empathy and problem-solving remain irreplaceable and what recruiters still seek for, among other behavourial skills such as collaboartion, teamwork and time management. The key message was that AI should complement, not replace, the human touch in design. Now more than ever designers needs to be more in touch with their humanity and while they need to collaborate closer with machine learning, they  need to be mindful not to lose touch with the way designers used to solve problem and interact with people. ‘AI’s role in UX design is not about replacing human creativity—but about enhancing it. As AI gets better, so should our designs.’
• Deirdre Corcoran reflected with Andrew Bradley on his pivotal career moments, from industrial design to design management, with a very unique skill of seeing potential and articulating the value of Design as integrated solutions for businesses, and founding Bradley – the Brand Agency. Andrew’s work with clients like Feargal Quinn and Applegreen, along with his role in organising the first Irish Design Awards with Hugh Wallace and setting up Design Skillnet, offered invaluable insights into the evolution of design in Ireland, its uniqueness and the skills needed by future design leaders and the next generation of designers.
• Mary White of Stobb Ireland and Emma Day discussed how fashion designers can leverage IP to protect their brands, grow revenue and build client trust. They also explored navigating the digital world sustainably and creatively, while minimising risks from copycats, conterfeits, danger of AI and the pitfalls of using new technology.
• Róisín Jordan, George Dempsey Flanagan and Stephen Ledwidge shared their sustainability journeys, offering tips on reducing digital footprints, building sustainable brands, driving change through collaborative eco-action and open-source framework like the Factory Method to share ecological graphic design methodologies. They emphasised the importance of measuring impact, educating oneself as well as clients on sustainability and amplifying the voices of change throught powerful story telling and narrative.

Thank you to all our speakers for their contributions and to everyone who attended and participated in this year’s Design Summer Sessions. We look forward to continuing this journey of learning and growth together!