The Story of DesignChats ….so far
Growing a design community in an engineering hotbed
It started with a simple breakfast meeting with fellow designer Riley, one of the few designers I knew in the Velocity space. We had both been spending time giving insight and feedback to companies in the Velocity Garage, and decided to grab coffee and talk about how we could inspire more designers to get involved.
That greasy breakfast became the first in an ongoing series of events now known as the #DesignBreakfast.
We shared a similar sentiment, there wasn’t enough design interaction in the startup space, and with the number of companies in the Velocity Garage alone, there were too many companies for us to help. We needed more design-minded folks.
Our breakfast that day inspired a campaign to connect with the network of designers we knew were hiding in the shade of the engineering masses of Waterloo. That greasy breakfast became the first in an ongoing series of events now known as the #DesignBreakfast.
Our next breakfast we looped in my fellow designer at Chalk.com Kevin, a talented designer plucked out of the Vancouver design scene to work here in KW. Breakfast was a greasy platter of Slice’s $4.99 breakfast special, but was as delicious as it was greasy. We explored various topics from ‘Sketch vs PS’ to deeper questions like where ‘UX’ fit in the mix of design specialties.
It was an incredibly valuable time to sit down and use each other as a sounding board for design.
These bi-weekly meetings turned into an incredible opportunity to use each other as sounding boards, and discuss topics we didn’t have the canvas for in our day to day, engineering-dense environments.
The breakfasts continued, and one by one more designers joined. Just 4 breakfasts in and we were sharing the table with 10 designers spread over companies like Vidyard, Kik, Boltmade and more. It was awesome to see, and the discussion was incredible.
The community seemed to fill a void for designers. Some of whom were sole designers at their company, or working as solo freelancers, and wanted that opportunity to have a place for feedback, and insight.
It was out of this realization that DesignChats was born. After breakfast #4 I fired up a slack team. In no time at all, resources were being shared, and discussions had sparked. DesignChats became the link between our breakfast meetings, giving us access to each other’s diverse talents and skill sets.
Since starting this community, our breakfast events are now routinely maxed out, and the slack group has quickly grown past 50 members. The collaboration and discussion in the community is incredible to watch.
DesignChats has now become the umbrella community for our #DesignBreakfast events. Soon we’ll be announcing more events in the community and will continue promoting the incredible events and meetups already flourishing in the area (links below).
We’re off to a great start so far, with some pretty exciting news to come around the corner. I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved with DesignChats so far — there’s no community without you.
DesignChats is a community of designers collaborating and building awesome products in the KW Tech scene. If you want to get involved, signup at designchats.com. or email us at hello@designchats.com
If you want to hear more about what’s happening in the #KW design community, follow along to DesignChats here on Medium, or follow us on Twitter @designchats.
While you’re at it, check out these awesome design events in KW:
Thanks to Kevin, Riley and Grant for taking care of the edits!
