Five Questions with Element Talks

We started the conference two years ago for our bachelor diploma. We’ve had some internship experience but we still had many questions about the designer’s profession. We decided to invite a couple of designers whom we admired, to share their knowledge. The topic turned out to be so interesting that it drew hundreds of designers from all over the country who participated in the first edition of the event. What was intended to be a small event for students of our university turned out to be a two-days long full-blown conference with 500-participants. As we discovered the great interest of designers in this area we decided to continue organizing the event and make it even bigger. We also wanted to make it affordable and accessible for everyone. Right now we want Element to be a space where our participants not only learn from our speakers, but also from one another by means of networking. And it is a great, once a year, opportunity for the graphic design community to integrate. This year we’ll be also providing interpreting of English lectures into Polish and the other way around so that foreign and Polish participants can benefit equally from the conference.

Our biggest struggle is to maintain a well-organised substantive event which is still affordable even for students. In order to make it accessible for many people we create a big event and it generates high costs. So what poses the biggest challenge for us is finding financial resources other than our participants' budgets.

Here we’re introducing two levels: elementary and professional. Each of the participants will be able to choose lectures and workshops tailored to their needs. Both beginners and more experienced attendees can also take part in Element Interview which is a job interview simulation led by our greatest experts from various design studios, companies, publishing houses and marketing agencies. Apart from providing them with a fair share of knowledge we also want them to feel motivated and encouraged to face challenges.

We are very glad that such acclaimed designers from all over the world have accepted our invitation to give a lecture but also we are very proud to introduce great Polish specialists to an international audience.

Thanks to the conference we have met so many interesting people and have collaborated with some of them. One of the most important collaborations is the one with Studio Bękarty. We met when they were our speakers at the first edition of the conference. They’ve supported us ever since and one time they told us about the idea that they wanted to realize with us, which was a typographic card game. We joined forces and together with 12 talented designers created a game called “Bękart”. At this year’s conference we will launch the second edition of the game we created with a different group of Polish illustrators. You can check it and buy it in our shop.

April 23 - 24
Warsaw, Poland
elementtalks.com
Get your ticket here

• Anton&Irene - antonandirene.com
• Studio Dumbar - Liza Enebeis & Wouter Dirks - studiodumbar.com
• Pentagram - Luke Hayman - pentagram.com
• Vasava - Bruno Sellés - vasava.es
• Michael Sliwinski - sliwinski.com /nozbe.com
• Zuzanna Skalska - 360inspiration.nl
• Jan Bajtlik - bajtlik.eu
• Michał Łojewski - whitecat.com.pl / ueg-store.com
• Werner Puchert - Linkedin
• Roman Łoziński - Linkedin
• Monika Olejnik - IKEA - Linkedin
• Joanna Zabawa - Linkedin
• Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry - wydawnictwodwiesiostry.pl