Our talks conference and panel discussion this year was expertly facilitated by the top man Rob Alderson.

Speaking and participating on the panel were Studio Moross, HelloMe, Colophon, The Rodina and People of Print’s Marcroy Smith.

The variety of talks were incredible from HelloMe’s meticulous and detailed insight into his process to The Rodina’s verging on insane whirlwind of projects, insight into their married life and relationship with design.
Tereza and Vit have devised an incredible system to differentiate your paid bread and butter projects with your personal, money-free, projects for love.

“There are real jobs… and blow jobs…”.

“Self initiated projects are what make you alive”- The Rodina

“Never work for your parents or for free” – The Rodina

Till explained his approach and the development of the studio’s branding projects with clients including Warp Records and the Berlin Art Prize. A self-confessed “perfectionist” Till elaborated on his personal project Critical Objects – born from a dissatisfaction with traditional graphic design and a need to transfer design thinking to a new medium.

The audience was carried the audience through Marcroy’s fascinating personal journey, from his background in illustration and love for multi-layered printing and working on a multitude of un-paid personal projects for the love of his practice, to running an internationally successful online platform and publishing beautiful books and publications.

Colophon opened up about the incredible difficulties in conquering projects on the scale of FIVE YEARS and Castledown. They talked working with children, developing scripts which can alert you to a rendering fail directly to your mobile phone and the nature of type design as being a “labour of love”.

Kate offered an honest, powerful and motivational insight into her movement form a lone illustrator/designer to becoming the director of an internationally renowned design studio with 8 employees, working on some of the “biggest projects in the world.” The scale of work which Kate showed from recent festivals and gigs around the world was incredible. Studio Moross don’t mess around when it comes to tight deadlines, maintaining a professional profile and producing strong, playful and popular work.

“Good design is for everyone”– Kate Moross

Rob then led one of the most insightful and brutally honest (verging on incriminating) panel discussions we have ever witnessed! Leading with questions like: “Is there a type of client you wouldn’t touch?” and “How does your work affect society?” dividing the group with an opinion on personal projects and the type of clients who should and shouldn’t be worked for.

It’s going to be hard to bring together such a diverse, honest, strongly opinionated and friendly group of people for 2016!

Photographs by Gordon Burniston.