Designer insights from Creative South 2019

We recently partnered with our friends at the Master of One Podcast to get to know the designers at this year’s Creative South design conference. It was a great chance to find out how some of the attendees used Sketch as part of their workflows, create some seriously cool swag, and give back to the wider community. Here’s their recap of the event.

A true multiplayer game

On April 11th, we joined nearly 1,000 creatives for the 9th installment of Creative South in Columbus, GA. While we’ve been to a lot of events, Creative South really stands out as an event that feels like coming home and being with family. It’s not a place to hand out a stack of business cards; it’s where you come to meet friends and make friends with everyone you meet.

Every year, the team at Creative South go all out with the the event theme. And this year the gaming theme was no exception. Just check out this intro:

Getting to know the players

When it came to chatting to designers, we wanted to create an interview space that reminded us of our favorite moments sharing games with friends. In our minds, that meant recreating a living room setting (which we dubbed the ‘Creative Couch’). We invited attendees to hang out with us while playing some some of our favorite games and that led to some really fun and unexpected moments. You can listen to those here.

A few of the people we met are regular Sketch users and we took the opportunity to ask about how they use Sketch to create awesome work while collaborating with others. Here’s a few of our favorite snippets from our conversations with Lenny Terenzi and HebaH:

Giving back to the wider community

One of the most meaningful moments of the whole conference was how it ended. Columbus, Ga was recently hit by a series of tornadoes that killed several people and destroyed many homes. We donated our “living room” to Valley Rescue Mission to be given to a family affected by the recent storms. We hope that this small gesture can help a family regain some normality and that they enjoy our ‘Creative Couch’ as much as we did.

We want to say thank you to Mike Jones and his team for giving us the opportunity to spend a weekend with the Creative South family. And to Sketch for helping to make our presence possible. If you didn’t get a chance to attend this year, don’t worry. Next year is the 10-year anniversary of Creative South. This ‘Family Reunion’ is sure to be the biggest — and friendliest — Creative South to date.

All photos by Katy Howard.

At Sketch, we believe in empowering local design communities and grassroots organisations through meaningful sponsorship that makes a difference to the events they hold. Through our Sketch Ambassadors program, we’re connecting Sketch users around the world, helping them to explore new ideas and create amazing work.