Creative South always has amazing talent and speakers. This year, I really enjoyed hearing from Adam Grason on his quest to work for Disney. Adam excelled in his design once his passion hit. It’s kind of unreal to see how he has progressed in such a short amount of time.

It was also good to hear close friends share their stories. Peter Deltondo reminded us of what is important in life:
God and family before design.
Keep rooted.
Keep focused.
Keep inspired.

As a UI/UX designer for almost 20 years, I got the most out of Anton & Irene’s talk and seeing their process of designing for the web. It was interesting to see how they wireframe as a team and how they cut pieces of paper as elements of a web design and move those around until the layout makes for the best user experience. They also reminded us that clients have an idea of what they want, but they are looking to us as the experts. Therefore, when we receive the creative brief, we need to find the fun in the brief and go above and beyond to offer the best product for every client.

And that leads us to Sunday.

A growing tradition at the conference happens on Sunday morning when the Creative by Design class and the Creative South community meet. This third annual meeting was a time for creatives who share in a belief of Christ to get together to study the Creator’s model for creativity and how, if we take those same steps as creatives, we will avoid burn out and stay inspired.

It was three years ago that Mike Jones and I first discussed the idea to start Creative by Design. We had 11 in attendance the first year; 28 the second year. We were blown away this year when 76 creatives came together for two hours over breakfast, worship songs by Eminent Worship, and talks by myself, Luke LeFevre, and Mike.

We left inspired and ready to create again.

Thank you once again to Creative South, Creative by Design, and Mike Jones. This year was once again another inspiring event, and I hope to see you next year!