WIAD is a free-one day annual conference hosted by the Information Architecture Institute and held in dozens of cities across the world.
This project is about WIAD Greece architecting happiness by #design that took place on February 21st 2015 | co-organised by Ad Axem with Parallaxi Mag | hosted in the amazing Thessaloniki Concert Hall.
2' Minute Sketches depicting the speakers of the conference during the speeches.
Made during the speeches|| Feb 2015
Markers on paper || I.M.
Proplusma Architektones|| City's Sentiments
Proplusma Arkitektones is an Athens-based architectural practice that was established in 2006. Co-founders Eygenia Manta and Michail Provelengios have been focusing their activities on various architectural domains. In their project they consider the exchange of information regarding the site, the specific human, the cultural context, the purpose and the budgetary aspects as crucial; this is one of their initial investmenets. In 2015 they start their new office in Hermoupolis, where Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou joins Proplusma Arkitektones, sharing his work and passion on Restoration and Cultural Heritage.
Design Toolkit || Make it happen: from idea to reality
Design Toolkit was born when they took a wild idea and decided to make it happen. The idea was Toolkit Startup 2014, the first meeting of young designers in Thessaloniki. The point wasn't the event itself, but how, from a wild idea, they got to an event that was attented by hundreds, with international participants and, and a ripple-effect that reached far beyond our city. How they overcome the "I don't know", "I can't", "it can't be done". How ideas, information, people and networks were organised so that they could implement what they had imagined.
"Beer got us together and we started an excellent collaboration."
"It's all about trust... it's like knowing that we are together for lunch and you won't turn your back on me leaving me with the bill."
Sotiris Kovos|| Studio Kovos Design|| Human mind and objects.
Exploring the mental relationship between human beings and everyday objects, provide an overview of contemporary European automotive design and it's elements. (Toyota Yaris)
"The impossible is possible to be possible."
"You believe in the strategy and then you make your strategy and you love your car... slowly slowly you're a good artist, you're a good designer and that's a difficult balance."
Martin Oberhauser || Bureau Oberhauser/ Nextr || What we've learned from being our client
As an employed designer, freelancer and founder of the design studio Bureau Oberhauser, Martin haw worked for many exciting clients and on countless challenging projects. But bringing your own product to life is something completely different. Experience while designing, developing, launching and optimising the public transportation app Nextr.
"Spread the word through twitter, facebook, behance.. Show your work to the world, we should never get tired or bored making new stuff."
Federacion Tres || Performance
The enseble Federacion Tres (George Dousos- Flute, Evangelos Paschalides- Zither, Theo Papadimitriou- Violoncello) was formed as a musical quest that stems from the sonic pluralism of our days and is driven- through a very special combination of instruments in a route that leads to the love for music- making. Their repetoire ranges from original and classical compositions to songs by Doors, and humour, as well as tunes rooted in greek music trandition. The musical instruments, through the use of modern techniques and electronic effects, exceed their tranditional roles and co-exist in a unique and delightful balance.
Eduardo Giansante || Dropbox/E-Dublin || Making feedback through communities
From an invisible product, millions of users and your own company. How can you actively collect feedback and undestand your audience in a meaningful way? At Intel, 99% of customers don't even know it exists. A product inside a box that's branded as anything else but Intel. How do you filter that? At Zynga, over 20 different genres of games with millions of users each. How can yoiu understand their needs? At Dropbox, how do you get feedback from 300 million users and make their experience seamless across multiple platforms? At E-Dublin, how can ou weight user's feedback vs. your own desires to change things in our own company?
"Hey, it's always about getting further and further... you know? Cause we're like... amazing minds... that's our job."
"You love the things you do... It's fun and I take it seriously, I work like crazy man! Have fun with your job so!"
Young UX Designers
...so... what it's like being young and... beautiful?
Book 'n' Bloom || Make your customers happy
Ioannis Pelelis || Redesigning with humans in mind, a study in tsmede.gr
Maria Makri || theproject.gr: making ideas come true via crowdsourcing.
Roxani Kotoula || Tape Creator: introducing retrohappiness.
Ioanna Archontaki || Periptera: a mobile app- finally realised.
PerhHarps
PerHarps is a special ensemble, a concept innovative, interesting and unique, which came into being through the harp class of the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki Professor Katerina Kitsou.
Perharps is a flexible ensemble with a great variety in repetoire, mainly based on transcriptions of different known pieces from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to cinema and pop music. The combinations are far and wide, playing together with strings and wind instruments, even with dancers who create a very special atmosphere, when they surround the ensemble.
Robert Stulle || Edenspiekermann || Design for joy.
Robert shows some recent projects and shares the methods and tools that he and his colleagues at Eden-spiekermann have found to be useful in their daily work. In our professional lives as designers, technies and information architects, we should realise that we work not only for our clients and their customers but also for ourselves. Robert claims that as architects of information we also wield the power to design for happiness and joy.
"Meeting the queen was really important and significant moment in my professional career."
"In our working environment, we have chalkboards and i-macs and headsets with music and we work beautifully together and we make movies our holidays and then we go back and work again."
Tobias Van Schneider || Spotify/ Memomi/ Semplice || Why side projects are stupid.
--(At the start of the conference, in a brief monent when for a while the presenter was talking in Greek, juuuust for a little bit, Tobias aaaaalmost fell asleep... and I aaaaalmost sketch it.)--
--(I wish I had some colour so Ι could paint those shoezz...)--
"You know, you can make like a really lot of money by using the word "fuck"... It's my favourite word."
"The most important thing in someone's profile is the "about" section... who you are, what you do!"
"Whenever someone tells you "you can't do it" just say "fuck it!"... (there it is, my favourite word again!)"
