Release Day Starring Our Community ⭐

Even the cookies were backwards for May’s CreativeMornings/Munich—perfect for the month’s theme around ‘Backwards‘—with speaker Johannes Pietsch. Check out the rest in their Flickr Album. The Munich chapter of CreativeMornings is organized by Kalle Buschmann. Follow along with them at @Munich_CM!

In honor of May’s theme, ‘Backwards,’ Mig Reyes spoke at our Chicago event—giving some backwards, or untraditional, advice. Here’s a recap:

Burn your business cards.
Mig points out that there’s an odd way we introduce ourselves in America, where we tend to lead with our title. “We define ourselves by what’s on this business card, this title, when really, we’re robbing ourselves of a lot of really great possibilities if we just forget about our title," says Mig.

He tells us to consider ruining our business card, or at least losing it. No one will hire you to do the über-specific job-title you have already anyways, so don’t let it define you.

Break things.
“All your life we’re told to make things, maybe we should break them," says Mig. He goes on to talk about his experience with humblepied.com, an initiative to capture great advice, all over iChat. In creating the website, he had to break a lot along the way.

Breaking things is dangerous, but that’s how you learn. Mig advises us to break things and take them apart.

Make ugly things.
“There’s this unhealthy obsession in design with making beautiful things," he says. Citing the work of Jan Tschichold, Mig says that we’re taught how to design ‘well’—in the same vein as Jan, but what about the David Carsons? Where is the next generation of people making things ugly?

Making beautiful isn’t always the point. We shouldn’t be sticking to the safe groove of design we’re in; we should mix things up and make ugly.

Spend less time on things.
Here, Mig introduces us to a few ways he broke up his design routine by spending less time on things. Like making things ugly, spending less time allowed Mig to drop some of the pressure and responsibility of making something beautiful and time-intensive.

Layer Tennis proved to be a great way for Mig to flex those skills under a time crunch, playing the likes of Jessica Hische and other artist/designer extraordinaires.

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Watch the talk here.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quoted by Sharon Montrose, Photographer
speaking at CreativeMornings/LosAngeles(*watch the talk)

Photos are up from CreativeMornings/Milan with Paolo Iabichino. Photos by Fillippo Podestá. Check out the rest in their Flickr Album. The Milan chapter of CreativeMornings is organized by Nicoló Borghi. Follow along with them at @Milan_CM!

In honor of July’s theme, we want to know: what kind of space are you most interested in learning more about?

- personal space
- airspace
- public space
- outer space
- cyberspace
- the space bar
- [insert other here]

How about you?

"The best way to learn history is not to take history courses. It’s to take history of art courses."

George Lois, Art director, designer, and author
speaking at CreativeMornings/NewYork(*watch the talk)

See the photos from CreativeMornings/Jeju with Cin Ho Shin, who creates products through reusing discarded materials. Photos by HARA STUDIO. Check out the rest in their Flickr Album. The Jeju chapter of CreativeMornings is organized by Bomi Kim. Follow along with them at @Jeju_CM!

This past June, chapters around the world gathered to talk about the monthly theme of ‘Food.’ In particular, Stockholm featured the likes of David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl Andersen of Green Kitchen Stories who spoke about their blog. Green Kitchen Stories inspires people around the world to cook super-tasty, healthy vegetarian recipes using only natural ingredients.

Above, are some photos of Thin Oat and Ginger Crisps—some tasty looking cookies you can bake yourself!

At our event in Ottawa this April, Harley Finkelstein, entrepreneur, lawyer, and the Chief Platform Officer (CPO) at Shopify spoke on the future of retail—part of our themed month around “The Future."

Harley speaks on how “technology is eating the world" and how in an economy where everything is becoming democratized—fundraising, prototyping, selling, fulfillment—behemoth companies are going to find it harder to compete with the small, creative organizations. An excellent watch for large corporate CEOs and small business owners alike.

Watch the talk.

Ever wonder what a breakfast at CreativeMornings/Auckland looks like? You can see more shots from their last event with Guy Ryan here. Photos by Aria Taylor and Kaan Hiini. You can also find more delicious breakfasts from around the world in our Flickr group, FOOD at CreativeMornings! The Auckland chapter of CreativeMornings is organized by Jade Tang. Follow along with them at @Auckland_CM!