Reasons To Be Creative
The ultimately engaging conference for innovative minds, and we’re giving away tickets
Before London begins to gear up for its 11th annual Design Festival this September, an array of visionaries are headed to the beach for the award-winning Reasons To Be Creative (RTBC) conference. Helmed by Flash developer John Davey, the yearly three-day event sees 35 entertaining and passionate speakers offer valuable insights into their respective crafts. Together some of the world’s most talented graphic designers, coders, filmmakers, web developers, illustrators and artists will gather under one roof at the beautiful Brighton Dome from 2-4 September, and we’re giving away tickets to two lucky CH readers.
Davey, a former standup comedian and the ever-enjoyable host of RTBC, originally created a conference in 2006 called Flash On The Beach. While the symposium’s ambiance and quality met Davey’s rigorous standards, it wasn’t long before he realized that creatives didn’t want to attend because they thought it was a Flash-specific conference—yet each year he had some awe-inspiring speakers who were less tech and more artistic. To make the distinction clear, he recently switched the name to one that lends itself greater appeal among the creative community as a whole.
The upshot is not only a wide-ranging roster of speakers, but a diversified audience as well. And Davey has designed the conference to make the most of both by allocating the speakers to three different stages, with the aim of mixing up the crowd for more natural networking. To keep a super-friendly vibe, Davey introduces the speakers with humorous, oft-fabled personal anecdotes (only Google will tell you if he and designer Paula Scher really were previously married), and adds sonic and visual zest with musical interludes and handsomely outfitted stages. RTBC is very much Davey’s vision of what a conference should be, and his fervor to put on a good show is only matched by the caliber of talent gracing the stages.
Some of the speakers we’re excited to listen to this year include Mr Bingo, Jon Burgerman, Dominic Wilcox, Julien Vallee and Erik Spiekermann. And this year’s not-to-miss workshops—which take place the day before on 1 September—will be held by Stefan Sagmeister, Brad Frost and Hellicar & Lewis. And what Davey refers to as one of the most excited aspects of RTBC, the Elevator Pitch session, allows budding designers to speak for three minutes on any creative topic in hopes their wisdom and delivery are worthy of a full spot next year.
To enter to win two tickets to this year’s upcoming conference in Brighton, simply tweet or retweet this article before 10AM EST on Friday, 16 August. Winners will be chosen at random.
Images courtesy of Reasons To Be Creative
