Over 800 designers attended Dribbble Meetups in April. There were huge turnouts for meetups in Poland, Ukraine, and the Philippines. Read more about the April Dribbble Meetups below.
Ready to start your Dribbble Meetup? Or get pumped for upcoming opportunities to meet other designers face-to-face in Walnut Creek, Amsterdam, Paris, Mexico City, Boston, Beijing, Kiev, and more.
Łódź, Poland @ Łódzka Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna
“Łódź Dribbble Meetup was a big success! Almost 200 attendees enjoyed the full day of lectures and discussion from twelve speakers. It was an amazing time at Łódzka Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna (ŁSSE), beautiful place. Thanks again to our hosts and sponsors. Check out our Facebook profile for a full event gallery. We talked a lot about the relationship between designers and clients.”
Poznan, Poland @ Netguru HQ
“Poznan Dribbble Meetup was the very first one in the city. We were aware that Poznan’s design scene is a thriving community with a great talent pool, so we wanted to engage them and create a space where they could share ideas and exchange experiences. That’s how the idea to organize Dribbble Meetup emerged. We had the necessary resources, so we involved the Netguru Product Design Team and kicked off with preparations.
The event took place on 20 April at our headquarters. We got support from the folks at Dribbble, Invision and Sketch, who sent us stickers, pins, and other cool swag. The participants loved them! Sketch also offered three one-year licenses for the software, which we gave away in a small contest. We were delighted with the help we received from our sponsors.
The attendance at the event surpassed our expectations. In the end, the event hosted around 150 design enthusiasts, fans, and professionals seeking inspiration and knowledge. Four speakers gave three presentations altogether. The first speaker, Michał Roszyk from Tonik Studio, shared the story of how he became a designer and the lessons learned on the journey. Then, Jacek Samsel from Symetria spoke about things that can go wrong in UX projects. The final presentation was delivered by guys from Netguru, Luke Pachytel and Marta Stachecka. They spoke about effective communication and co-operation in a design team. After the presentation, we dedicated two hours for networking. We got some pizza delivered and offered drinks to attendees.
We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the community. It gave us more motivation to continue our work, and we’ll definitely organize another edition of Poznan Dribbble Meetup in the near future.”
London, Ontario @ Olio Digital Labs
“After hosting London, Ontario’s first ever Dribbble Meetup in 2016, several people asked us when Olio would do so again. So it was a thrill for us to announce a few months ago that we would be hosting the second annual #LDNontDribbble on April 4, 2017!
The evening started with some fantastic crepes from a local restaurant, and once every had filled their bellies, we moved on to the panel on ‘Measuring Design Success.’ There was some really, really good discussion on whether you can or should measure design success, how to do so, what metrics to use, and whether their teams celebrated success. I specifically chose people who hadn’t done much, if any, public speaking before so that we would hear from some new voices. I feel like this small gamble really paid off.
We then set about one of my favourite parts of the evening… the Analog Playoff! The theme this year was ‘London, Ontario.’ Yes, it’s rather vague, but that was intentional to try and drum up some unique ideas. The winners were both provided with free Sketch licenses, and boy did they earn it!
Special shout out to our sponsors again like Sketch, Dribbble, Stocksy, Skillshare, and SitePoint! Thanks to you, no one walked away empty handed (literally)!”
Manila, Philippines @ First Circle HQ
“We met Tony Ennis, the CTO of First Circle, personally from the last Dribbble Manila Meetup 02, and he expressed interest in sponsoring the next Dribbble Meetup. So he was the first person we contacted when we were cooking up the third meetup. The First Circle team was really enthusiastic about the meetup and prepared everything from food, beverages, seats, mic, and speakers.
One of the amazing feelings when organizing Dribbble meetups is that we always get overwhelming support from the creative community. We told the First Circle team that we’re expecting 50–60 people to show up. Upon releasing the event page in social media, we instantly hit 50 attendees in less than 24 hours! We had to wait until it reaches 60, and the registrations are still continuously coming in, so we had to make a waitlist this time again. What we love about this crowd is that we’ve seen new faces and they come from different fields: UI, UX, Illustration, Motion Design, Software Engineering, etc.
Tony Ennis was our first speaker, and he talked about creating value as a designer. Then we had a lightning talk from the head of UX Philippines, Ely Apao, who promoted the upcoming UX Philippines Conference, one of the largest UX conferences in the Philippines. Lastly, Nico Encarnacion from Ace by Saatchi & Saatchi talked about the Sketch + Invision + Zeplin workflow.
It was a great opportunity to expand your network and meet other designers. People were talking and getting to know each other over pizzas and beer. Thanks to everyone who attended! It would not be possible without the help of the First Circle team, our speakers, and of course, the attendees! We would also like to thank John Daniel Castillo for sharing his experience and learnings from attending a Dribbble Manila Meetup! See you next time!”
Orlando, FL @ Credo Conduit
“Schiani Ledo gave us an awesome live demonstration of his design process; from conceptualizing to preparing his files for print. Guests had the opportunity to get up close to each pencil strokes and every item in his toolkit!
Thanks to our April partners for their continued support! Dribbble, Credo Conduit, and the Giant Illustrators group. Check out what they are up to and share the love!
Stay in touch with our community by following us on Twitter, participating in our yearly survey, and joining our #dribbble channel on Slack at orlandodesigners.info. NEW this month, our own Facebook Group Woohoo!”
Dnipro, Ukraine @ Noosphere
“Noosphere hosted their first Dribbble Meetup. The event attracted 153 designers from Dnipro, Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Cherkassy in Ukraine. It even included representatives from Israel.
Our meetup by the numbers: 9 speakers, 38 Dribbble Analog Playoff participants, 8 cinematography contest participants, and 391 live stream viewers!
The meetup schedule was not only packed with great presentations, it also included creativity competitions. The first contest was for cinematography, where participants chose the best piece from the eight masterpieces received. The second contest was the Dribbble Analog Playoff battle. Each participant got a template to draw in a ‘do it yourself doodler’ style. The winner of this event was also chosen by the audience. Noosphere was excited to host the event. To find out more about it, check out the presentations and video which are available on the Dnipro Dribbble Meetup Facebook page.”
London, England @ The Book Club
“We met at a bar in Shoreditch for an informal evening of networking and drinks. We were a small and interesting group made up of designers from all over the world and of different disciplines. The atmosphere was buzzing, everyone got to speak to each other and make connections, and other creatives at the bar ended up joining in as well.
It was great to host our first meetup and we are already planning an even bigger and better one for the summer, where we will be inviting speakers and seeking out sponsors.”
Find more Meetups stories on our blog Courtside. Have a suggestion? Contact stories@dribbble.com.
