It was so exciting for me when the Delhi Dribbble meetup was announced and we were to register for it. I got a wonderful opportunity to volunteer for the same. This was the first time I was volunteering and that too for the biggest design meet up. I was all excited about executing the task given to me. Yes, it was crazy and we visited a day before to ensure that everything was on point and there were no last-minute mishaps. I was told to write an article for the same which I got really excited about.
Saturday 28th started with a hustle for me personally. I was a volunteer at the Dribbble Designboat meetup and we all were told in our dry run on 27th that we must be at the venue at 8:30 sharp. But despite all my efforts, I was late.
Rest of the volunteers were there so it was fine for one to be late. After changing into my beautiful black volunteer Dribble Designboat Tee I started looking for things which I could do. I started with helping my friend in pasting the charts on the window to stop light from entering the room and ruining the presentation being played by our amazing speakers.
Anyhow, by 10 AM people started coming and interacting with one another. Registration was done, beautiful goodies with superhero stickers and other things were handed over. After everyone was seated event started with the chirpy anchors giving a brief introduction about what was going to happen in the event.
I won’t bore you with further details and just get on with all the important pointers I was able to jot down from the wonderful sessions of the ingenious speakers.
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Amber Krishan
(VP of User Experience at PayU India)
Our very first and very energising and engaging speaker came on stage. He started with a Personal story where he told that when he told his parents he wanted to be a designer they thought it is a wild goose chase as designers didn’t get paid enough at that time.
He discussed how the year 2008 was a landmark in the design industry. It is when Apple launched its App Store.
“ If you want to convey your thoughts do it through narratives”
He asked very intriguing questions. Design is not just the UI (User Interface). With the AI coming into our lives design goes way beyond. It goes as far as we can possibly imagine.
He explained beautifully how design is not just knowing some tools and being good at it. Design is a mixture of the plethora of fields- from Psychology to Marketing to Technology to Library Management.
What I learned:
What I learned from his great knowledge sharing session was that we should just not live in our comfort zone and keep on designing websites. Designing is just not designing websites and doing UI it is more than that. We should focus more on providing solutions and broaden our horizons and think beyond illustrator and photoshop for designing. We should let our mind be free in order to give something back to the world. -
Nitin Sethi
(VP Digital at Indigo Airlines)
How many speakers would you see who specially request to not record them? Well, Nitin did that. Nitin is very keen on pushing youngsters to start their own thing and bring India on the map of the most successful start-ups.
A little tip came in handy where he talked about SHA (Share Holder Agreement).He preached many words of wisdom keeping the humour intact.
The importance of data in today’s world was explained in simple terms and he has worked for many big companies on his own terms.
According to him“We all are designers in some way”
In his closing notes, he told that data is the key for crafting a personal experience for the user and to get that widely used term ‘ User Retention’.
What I learned:
We must always be involved with our surroundings and not just opt for a 9-5 job if we want to grow as a designer. It is an ever-evolving field. We must focus on the data as data is the key. Data is the answer to all our problems and a catalyst to all our solutions. Building a name for yourself takes a whole lot more out of you, “it takes your time”. Sometimes it even takes working 19 hours per day. -
Rajat Agarwal
(Experience Design Lead for TO THE NEW)
The third session was under Rajat’s wings. He has some very good insights and even after 9 years of experience he has his curiosity intact. Rajat chose a very different topic for his talk. He talked about how designers don’t realise that where is the thin line between copying and taking inspiration. It didn’t feel like this was his first talk he chose the topic like a pro.
He has his own way of interpreting things which are generally in the form of a scenario or a story given to the fact that he is a movie buff. The way he described Behance and Dribbble as a designer’s best friend was hilarious.
What I learned:There were some very simple yet effective takeaways from his session. We must learn to strike a balance between art and science as both are related and learn to find inspirations in little things we see. We must keep our mind open and let the energy flow.
Try imagining a situation in the form of narratives because that’s how users remember things and that is what human nature is.
40 Things All Artists Can Relate To
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Niyam Bhushan
(Consulting, Training and Mentoring in Design at Dionysus)
Niyam is no new name in the design industry. He is a design mentor and is a famous Tedx speaker with over 33 years of experience in the industry. At first, you will look at him all confused about the way he dresses it is very colourful and cheering. He makes it very clear the moment he starts talking that:
“Colour demands courage”
… and how we are all afraid to experiment with what nature has provided us, and try to play it safe and restrict ourselves to a limited set of colours.
He truly made us understand the essence of colours and how colours tell us to be non-verbal and still express what we are feeling at that moment.
It was a great and engaging session and we understood the fact that Design can never be taught, it can only be caught.
What I learned:
This session made me realise how we try to play everything safe and opt for minimalism where we can really let our thought run wild and burst in the world of colours. Colour is a language and not just something to make things look pretty. It is an emotion and can really help people communicate without really speaking. We must not underestimate the power of colour. -
Rohit Mehta
(Senior Corporate Trainer and Consultant (Adobe, 3d and Unity domain )at Koenig Solutions)
The crowd was super excited for this session and you couldn’t tell that we had listened to 4 speakers till now. The enthusiasm and energy of the people in that room were commendable. They were very excited for the AR and VR session, of course, this is the future and the trend is catching up and taking everyone by storm.
He gave some insights on the Augmented Reality Board and explained about the process with rough prototypes.
All the questions were later answered after he was done talking about AR and VR.
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Abhishek SM
(Design Mentor at DesignBoat UI/UX School)
The last session was finished in high spirits by Abhishek. He came on stage and instantly engaged the whole crowd by asking questions which we never give a second thought to, while we are working on a design. He pointed out the fact that we all hate changes. Everybody needs some time to get used to something new. He explained the basic process while designing:
There is an idea initially ——> Designer adds thinking to that idea ———> Then developer comes into the picture
But is this enough?
We all know about atoms and how they constitute the whole universe.
Is atomic design really important while designing something?What will be an atom while designing a profile page? It is basic science and we were amazed how simple it was to learn atomic design.
A profile picture will be an atom. User name will be an atom. Both combined together become a molecule.
The whole feed can be called an organism. It’s all pure science, it’s all that we are basically made up of. Fascinating, isn’t it?
Before closing, he told us a design system is good when the developer and the designer are on the same page and actually know what the other is working on. They both must be aware of the limitations of the field of the other person.
“Designers may not be magicians, but both work very hard to make someone happy. ”
What I learned:
There is a base for everything and whatever happens in the universe is due to some reason. Design is also due to some reason and closely related to the basic anatomy of universe.
The design system is pure science made up of atoms, molecules and structures all set in a form of hierarchy.
It was a great day. It was crazy, loud and very informative at the same time. We got to meet many people from different parts of the city working, non-working and some just students with hopes in their eyes for making it big in the design industry one day. Delhi Dribbble meetup was worth attending.
