Nearly 950 designers attended Dribbble Meetups all around the world in May, representing 8 countries within 15 events. There were some new faces in there, such as Walnut Creek, some old friends, such as the folks in Orlando and Warsaw, and places we just hadn’t heard from in a while, like Beijing.
Getting FOMO? There are plenty more Dribbble Meetups on deck for June in places like Victoria, Los Angeles, Paris, Shanghai, Mexico City, and more. Or maybe you’re ready to host your own Dribbble Meetup and grow the community in your area.
Walnut Creek, California @ Calicraft Brewing Company
“Dribbblers were welcomed by an oversized plywood logo at the entrance of the brewery. We had 20 attendees for the first East Bay meetup. Half of the attendees traveled at least 50 miles. The Awesomed Crew and Zack Onisko, Dribbble’s, CEO showed up. Lots of really amazing connections were made and insightful information was shared. Everyone got the latest Dribbble swag including shirts for all. Galya at Sketch was generous enough to donate three user licenses. Thank you to everyone for making the trek.”
Chicago, Illinois @ Gino’s East
“Our first Dribbble meetup, LogoLounge at Chicago, proved to be a huge hit with more than 150 attendees who came for some deep-dish, drinks and design discussion.
The party was modern and a blast to say the least, with writing on the walls, killer swag grabs, and a special preview video of some of the logos included in our soon-to-be-published LogoLounge Book 10.
We even saw some of our favorite designer superstars stopped by, including Steve Gibbs and Stefan Mumaw. And as an added surprise to help us celebrate May the 4th National Star Wars Day, we had a few famous — or should we say infamous — characters make a special appearance. Our special guests created a great deal of excitement and laughs all around. Our first Dribbble meetup was a huge success, but we couldn’t have pulled it off without the encouragement, support, love and attendance of our members and LogoLounge fans. From the bottom of our design hearts, we thank YOU for making our Chicago meetup such a blast, and such a great first of the many meetups to come!”
Saint Louis, Missouri @ AMCOE
“On a rainy night in Saint Louis, a group of ten designers gathered to enjoy each other’s’ company and some delicious pizza and beer. We chatted about the latest design tools and techniques then shifted into the analog playoff. Thanks to AMCOE St. Louis for providing the space and dinner. Thanks to Dribbble for the fantastic swag!”
Amsterdam, Netherlands @ TQ Amsterdam
“The Amsterdam Dribbble Meetup organized by Brthrs Agency & Startup Studio Nescio was a great success. We had about 200 people in attendance. Jasper Hauser (Former Facebook & Sofa) and Wouter de Bres (Design Lead Degreed) gave very inspiring talks about their vision on product design. Lightspeed provided everybody with a lot of delicious Arabic food, beer, and other drinks.
Mexico City, Mexico @ Centraal
“This Meetup featured the Crew from El Deforma, a Mexican parody and satirical news portal that has blown up in recent years. With a record-breaking 130 RSVPs, this was our biggest Meetup to date. After a quick Show-and-Tell about their favorite work, the crew took questions from attendees. Questions ranged from their particular illustration styles to the power of satire and the line between it and “fake news”. The crew also talked about the power of newspaper-style comics in the digital era, and how important it is to go down to the detail when designing a satirical website. One of the main problems is if your header is too big and your content too small, readers will only skim through the title and nothing else, which can give them a totally distorted view of the actual ‘news’. We also chatted about the challenges of pushing into new media and new channels, and how humor adapts to VR, AR and interactive contents. After the talk we had a blast chatting and networking over hot dogs and snacks, courtesy of our hosts at Centraal.”
Charlotte @ Levvel
“Charlotte’s very first Dribbble Meetup was an awesome success! Around fifty designers came out to enjoy some pizza and chat with other designers, all with a gorgeous view of the Charlotte skyline in the background. Levvel had a great panel discussion around how they approach design with their design principles and then we ended the night with an Analog Playoff to see who could create the best Charlotte Design mascot. We really want to start bringing the design community together more often and I think this was a great start!”
Orlando, Florida @ Big Vision
“Cory Martin shared his experience working as a Motion Designer; the dos and don’ts of going from vector to animation and collaborating on a team.
Thanks to our May partners for their continued support! Dribbble, and Big Vision. 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. Also, we now have our own Facebook Group!”
Beijing, China @ Together Hostel
“This is the first Dribbble meetup in Beijing since 2014, and 50 Designers, from giant tech corps to tiny startups, all came to join us. We gave each attendee a card with a question, and they were then divided into groups discussing to discuss their questions. After the discussion, we asked participants to share their thoughts and highlights of the discussion. Overall, the response was every positive. Participants enjoyed making new friends and sharing their ideas with each other. Designers in Beijing desire more opportunities to network, and Dribbble Meetups offer a really good platform for this. We are looking forward to the next meetup!”
Bandung, Indonesia @ Kolaborasi
“May 21st 2017 was an amazing day where more than 40 UI/UX enthusiasts showed up at Dribbble Meetup Bandung. Most of them were from Bandung, while there were also few that came from elsewhere. The event started with an ice breaking talk show to get to know the audience and get some laughs in. It continued on with a UX workshop by a speaker from KMKLabs, and a group discussion about UI/UX with our facilitator about working in the field.
After lunch and snacks, attendees were divided into groups to ask our three traveling guests some questions about their travels. The meetup went well and everyone had a great time! We thank Geekhunter for the support and of course to Dribbble for making this meetup possible.”
Warsaw @ The Place
“The 5th Dribbble Warsaw Meetup hosted by EL Passion and sponsored by Daftcode gathered around 90 designers. We had engaging conversations and delicious beer, but most importantly we listened to great talks from Justyna Zygmunt (Lawyer, Kochański, Zięba i Partnerzy) on how to successfully protect User Interface designs, Tomasz Koszyk (Founder, Hologram Design) on his experience in setting up and managing a design studio, and Paweł Szymankiewicz (Lead UI/UX Designer, Droids On Roids) on efficient cooperation with developers.”
Manila, Phillippines @ Sta. Lucia Mall
“The Manila East meetup was meant to test the waters in the area. I’ve been helping to organize meetups in Manila and thought, what if we can do something closer to home? This part of the Tagalog region, particularly Angono, has a long history in the arts. If enough people showed up, it would be good to continue that tradition and build a community of designers here as well. So, I posted the event in the Dribbble Philippines group on Facebook a few days before the date and hoped for the best.
Luckily, we were joined by a handful of Dribbble Players and Prospects. The casual coffee-shop roundtable was intimate and we talked about a wide range of topics. We discussed design, code, as well as wearing both hats. The conversation covered freelancing, pricing, working full-time as an in-house designer, design vs art, living in the margins of Manila, and finding one’s niche in a global marketplace. We all went home looking forward to meeting more designers from the area in the future.”
Meetups
The following Dribbble Meetups are happening soon. For the full list of upcoming meetups, visit our Meetups page.
Find more Meetups stories on our blog Courtside. Have a suggestion? Contact stories@dribbble.com.
