Creative Collisions: Find Monthly Inspiration at Designbox in Downtown Raleigh

Want creative inspiration from outside your day-to-day routine, but find it’s hard to get away from work? Spend just one hour a month at Designbox’s Creative Collisions, a brownbag lunch speaker series in downtown Raleigh. You’ll come away refreshed and inspired!

Even better, our October 2014 lunch features designers who participated in and organizers of the AIGA Centennial Poster Tour.

Creative Inspiration and Learning: Past Speakers at Designbox

As the Designbox speaker series’ volunteer organizer, I recruit local people who are doing interesting, inspiring things, from a variety of fields. Past lunchtime speakers and presentations include:

  • Sarah Powers from SPARKcon shared advice on how to organize creative people to get things done—including AIGA Raleigh’s designSPARK at SPARKcon.
    Gab Smith from CAM Raleigh shared how the museum created a center of creativity (and how its middle-school docent program is a leadership development program in disguise).
  • Adam Chasen and Auditi Hussain shared how their award-winning new home in downtown Raleigh was built to minimize their environmental impact, with appliances from Craigslist and framing waste that fit inside a single pickup truck.
  • Sara Phoenix from Cirque du Vol shared how the circus in downtown Raleigh helps people achieve their full potential while staying healthy.
    Amidst the recent boom in local food, Matthew Booker from NC State shared research on why Americans stopped eating local food 100 years ago, with insights into how people make decisions.
  • Jason Hibbets from Red Hat shared how to apply the Open Source Way to business, government, and more. You can hear a recording of his talk online.
  • Robin Simonton from Historic Oakwood Cemetery shared funny stories about finding creative solutions in a field—funeral services—that many might not see as especially creative.
  • Rob Cotter from Organic Transit shared about the process of designing and commercializing an environmentally-innovative new product, the 1,800 MPG “ELF” solar-powered bike, that’s attracted national media attention and celebrity owners like Jerry Seinfeld.

 

When & Where: Upcoming Lunch Events

You can sign up today for the October 2014 Creative Collisions featuring designers whose posters are part of the AIGA Centennial Poster Tour.

All events are free and open to the public—bring your own lunch, or we can pre-order pizza for you (please bring $5 cash). The brownbag lunches happen every 2nd Wednesday from 12-1pm. We meet at Designbox in downtown Raleigh (307 W. Martin Street, Raleigh, NC 27601). There’s plenty of on-street parking nearby, with parking decks available.

The lunches are informal, with lots of discussion and Q&A. We’ll typically get 15-30 attendees, including designers, developers, entrepreneurs, architects, marketers, non-profit leaders, and more. Please RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

Want to see the latest events and get your free tickets? Visit the Creative Collisions Eventbrite page. Got a speaker idea? Please email me (karl at agencyfirebox.com) your suggestions and introductions. Either way, I hope to see you at an upcoming creative event!

Guest post by Karl Sakas

marketing-agency-business-consultant-karl-sakas-suit-headshot_200x200Karl Sakas helps digital marketing agency owners turn their agency into the agency they always wanted. He speaks nationally and has written three books about marketing agency management. As president of Agency Firebox, he’s solved business problems for agency owners across 17 time zones. Get a free copy of Don’t Just Make the Logo Bigger: Taking Clients from Painful to Profitable when you sign up for his email newsletter.

By Tracy Maniaci
Published September 14, 2014