About HOW Design Live
HOW Design Live is the biggest (and, let’s not be modest, the best) gathering of creative professionals anywhere. You’re invited to join us as we celebrate our 25th anniversary in Chicago May 4-8 with what is sure to be the most inspiring, informational, educational, and talked-about HOW Design Live yet.HOW delivers everything you need to pursue a fulfilling, successful creative career — in one essential event!
HOW offers BOTH the creative inspiration to rekindle your passion for your work PLUS the tactical, take-home information you need to achieve and advance in your career. HOW has its finger on the pulse of the creative industry and delivers practical sessions that address the challenges you face today — the program changes every year to meet your needs, and it’s never the same event twice. HOW Design Live is where creative professionals in all disciplines with a range of experience come to learn from the brightest minds in the creative industry — and beyond. It’s where you can discover new ideas, new sources of inspiration, new skills, new connections with other creative professionals. HOW Design Live is where you can get face-to-face with brand leaders, big thinkers and design heroes—in sessions both large and small.
With a bolder-than-ever speaker lineup and up-to-the-minute session topics, HOW Design Live is the most talked-about industry event of the year.
To get started, take a look at the agenda. HOW Design Live is divided into five programs, each with a specific focus, and you get to completely customize your personal agenda. Think about what you want to get out of the conference, then pick the sessions, workshops and social events that help you fulfill those goals. It’s all up to you!
Gary Lynch
Welcome to HOW Design Live
There is nothing as amazing, inspirational, magical or “wow” as HOW Design Live. It’s a career changing and life changing experience. That’s not hyperbole. It is a fact that is validated every year. Some people wait years for the opportunity to attend HOW Design Live and if you are coming this year you must take advantage of everything there is to offer. Immerse yourself in the full five days of creativity and inspiration, expose yourself to the thinking of industry icons, learn creative skills and creative processes that can accelerate your career, make new friends (they can last a lifetime) and start a magical journey of self-discovery. That’s the “wow” of HOW Design Live. It can be an experience of a lifetime.
Gary is responsible for the overall management, business development and strategic direction of F+W Media’s Design (HOW & Print), Publishing and Beverage communities. He has held senior management positions at Reuters, Thomson Financial, Incisive Media, Euromoney and several other media companies where he was responsible for a broad portfolio of global media properties. Gary is also a husband, a father, an avid baseball fan, wine lover, music lover…and a poet. He wants to meet you. Please take a moment to say “hi”.
Bridgid Agricola
HOW Design
Whether you’re searching for inspiration or want to enhance your design skills—or, like most of us, both—you’ll find what you need in the HOW Design program. Bridgid Agricola and the HOW team are putting together a program that covers everything from working with clients to choosing type to staying creative on demand. You’ll get detailed skills and processes along with the big-picture creativity that will help you build a successful career.
Plus, you’ll get to spend five days with your own people: creatives from around the world. Trust us, the creative energy will be palpable and more invigorating than anything you’ve ever experienced.
Andrew Gibbs
The Dieline Packaging
Successful brand managers and designers know that effective packaging is rooted in strategy. Make sure your strategy is sound—and learn how to communicate it to clients and corporate colleagues—with The Dieline Packaging Program.
The Dieline’s Andrew Gibbs has put together a program packed with best practices and case studies from top brands, all designed to help you develop your strategic skills and taking your branding expertise to the next level.
Debbie Millman
HOW Leadership
Effective leaders know when to listen. And the HOW Leadership Program, presented in partnership with Sterling Brands’ Debbie Millman, is packed with speakers that you’ll want to hear.
The speaker roster is bursting with effective leaders—the creatives, authors, and business folks who are shaping the future of design—that will help shape your own personal leadership mantra. It doesn’t even matter if you’re trying to manage an entire company, team or just yourself—you’ll discover the tools you need to fulfill your leadership goals.
Andy Brenits
Ed Roberts
In-House Management
As an in-house manager, you’re responsible for inspiring your team, keeping the work running smoothly, selling ideas up the corporate ladder, and dealing with the fallout when “creative” and “corporate” don’t mix.Luckily the In-House Management program, led by long-time In-House attendees and in-house team managers Andy Brenits and Ed Roberts, was designed with your many roles in mind. You’ll brush up your business and communication skills, and pick up creative and leadership skills that will have your team producing their best work ever.
Ilise Benun
Creative Business
Join Marketing Mentor founder Ilise Benun and her cadre of small business and freelancing experts for a crash-course in business. Designed for agencies of all sizes that focus on creativity—or that could use a creative approach to solutions—this program will offer expert guidance on creating a business action plan, pricing your work, cultivating a strong client base, and more.
Whether you're working solo, running an agency, or are summoning the courage to start your own creative business, you'll find all the resources you need in the Creative Business program.
If you can’t spend five days with us, choose a one- or two-day registration and attend any event you wish during that time period. Whatever registration option you choose, you’ll design a completely customized conference experience that gives you exactly what you need.
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