Join the design community in London, Ontario for a Dribbble Meetup on Tuesday, April 4th hosted by Olio Digital Labs! There will be networking, trivia, a design panel and Q&A, an analog playoff and more. Find more information and RSVP on Nvite.
In advance of the meetup, we spoke with meetup organizer Derek Silva about the London design scene.
Tell us what you love about London, Ontario.
What’s so great about London, Ontario is the amount of homegrown, unique businesses we have here. London is really driven by entrepreneurs these days whether they are founding eateries, web agencies, breweries, or co-working spaces. That’s a fairly recent change for the area as, London has acted as the regional hub for lots of large companies, but rarely as the headquarters (with a few notable exceptions). It has an extremely vibrant downtown with events happening almost every night of the week, with some surrounding heritage areas that are really inviting.
Tell us where you work, in relation to the rest of London, Ontario.
Olio Digital Labs is a web and mobile app development agency, and we’re located in the heart of downtown London, Ontario. We have a view of a gothic Government of Canada building, with plenty of amenities nearby. You can easily see the breadth of architecture available in London from a Catholic cathedral founded in 1834, to modern high-rise apartment buildings being built right now.
Tell us about the London’s design scene.
Given the size of the city (384,000+), I like to think the design scene here is really strong. Part of that is thanks to the number of agencies in the city, whether they’re focused on print or web design, and Fanshawe College’s strong Interactive Media Design program. So not only are we educating students in design here, but we are also able to employ many of them locally. Some of the older companies I mentioned earlier, like London Life, have insourced web design and development and are reinvigorating themselves from the inside. It’s a good time to be in the web industry in London.
Choose three shots from London, Ontario Dribbblers you admire, and tell us what you like about each one.
Anderson Craft Ales by Brett Lair , above left.
I really like this shot for a few reasons. First, it’s a great brand. Second, the logo is flawless, easily identifiable, and works across mediums. The Anderson family has applied it very consistently, and Brett’s other Dribbble shots bear this out. Anderson Craft Ales is quickly gaining notoriety across Ontario, and bringing other existing and new breweries along with it, furthering London’s long tradition of brewing beer.
Daily UI #024 - Boarding Pass by Nancy Nguyen, above center.
I met Nancy at a Ladies That UX meetup Olio hosted in 2016, and I am enjoying seeing her #DailyUI challenge submissions. This airline ticket shot really caught my eye because I have flown on Delta before, and been in possession of tickets from over a dozen different airlines. I know they’re supposed to be machine readable, but I found Nancy’s ideas of a very simple, human-readable ticket to be really great. It even has a barcode, but it’s not in the way!
London Roundhouse Branding by Andy Ratz, above right.
The London Roundhouse has a very long history, dating back to just 20 years after Canadian Confederation. It is now the home of an agency called rtraction, which runs two separate brands. The building itself is gorgeous, and the level of detail the property owners put into its renovation was inspiring. It was nice to see the rtraction team really invest in the restoration of the building, so much so that they played a part in naming and branding it. They also allow the community to use the space, often free of charge, allowing others to see the beauty of the large windows, mostly original wood and brick, and to get a sense of the many roles the building has played over the last 130 years.
Can’t make it on Tuesday, April 4th? Find Derek on Dribbble, Twitter and at oliodigitallabs.com.
Find more Meetups stories on our blog Courtside. Have a suggestion? Contact stories@dribbble.com.
