Over the weekend I excitingly had the privilege of attending the 10th annual Semi-Permanent design conference in Darling Harbour. Taking place over two days the event had a visible grasp over the ‘creative’ community of Sydney.

The impressive speaker line up included a mixture of home-grown and international creatives, each with their own unique story to tell. They covered a diverse range of disciplines ranging from  advertising, creative consulting, graphic design, photography, publishing through to paper engineering, typography, illustration, street art and then some.

What I found, was the event was a true celebration of everything creative. It was fun, loud and there were certainly no limits.  I was able to draw inspiration from a design and creative point of view through to a business point of view. As I watched, listened and hastily took notes, I found there were a few themes that emerged:

• You don’t need permission nor credentials to create as noted by  Kelly Anderson and Bec Parsons
• Constantly question the world around you and pave your own path
• Create out of passion and not out of the need for money. The money will eventually follow as Bec Parsons and Bart Celestino explored
• Embrace failure, which we here at UWS LOVE. It will happen as Derek Henderson pointed out.
• Where There’s Smoke shared the importance of collaboration, being open and flexible to ‘outside ideas’ but strong enough to stay on strategy and push the project in the right direction
• Vince Frost reminded us to be playful in our thinking and shared his 4 c’s Care, connect, collaborate and celebrate

Most speakers added a great deal of fun and humour (whether is was obvious or dry) to their talk; it was evident they do what they do out of pure enjoyment.

‘Cant believe we get paid for this…we would do it for free…its almost criminal.’ (Where There’s Smoke)

They stressed that anyone in the crowd, or  those who were listening and watching via the live feed, could be in their position, on stage telling their own story. As long as you have the motivation and persistence, whether you take a directed or fragmented path and you will get there (not so much onto the stage, but to where you want to be) .  No speaker took themselves seriously, but were proud to show their ‘work’ .

My all time favourite presentation was from Hi-Res’s, Florian Schmitt (Derek Henderson a close second). I will leave you with a few quotes to come out of his talk,

‘Stay stupid; once you know what you’re doing, you do what you know.’

‘Dont be limited by the tools you know.’

‘Remember the compliments, forget the insults.’

Ps: To all our readers in Auckland, Brisbane and Melbourne, I highly recommend you get yourself a ticket!

Main image sourced from wallpaper.com, featured image sourced from semi-permanent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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