Reactive represented at Sex, Drugs & Helvetica in Melbourne and Brisbane in September. The attendance was great – we had almost 900 people in both places together. But most of all it was fab bunch of speakers: great creatives but also clever and generous human beings, on and off stage. It was possibly the best group I have yet had the honour of sharing a stage with.
Opening up was Chris Doyle, easily the funniest man in Design (go on, follow him on http://instagram.com/cdandco ).
As he spoke about his work for The Jezables we learnt how he used to lay it all bare on stage as singer of a Screamo band from Canberra (oh dear, double whammy). How he managed to mix stand up comedy with screaming emo music is a mystery to me.
Following him were Fabio Orangato Design and Michaela from Studio Round, both working in Melbourne. After me and countering Chris’s antics (while not being unfunny) was Kevin Finn with his thoughtfulness and passion for deep design thinking.
His series of Open Manifesto books are renowned the world over 
and he continues to work with global creative luminaries like Vince Frost, Stefan Sagmeister and Steven Heller on his trivia game DesigNerd.
Michael C Place (previously of Designers Republic fame and now leading Build) rounded it off and spoke about a great project for Ukrainian kids TV station PlusPlus that created lots of ups and downs (mostly downs actually).
We at Reactive have already admired Michael and Build for their great character designs for Virgin America. Check them out, they are a hoot.
Here are more snap shot impressions from the ground: http://instagram.com/sdhelvetica and here is a live blog doco http://www.sexdrugshelvetica.com/liveblog2014 
Find below a more elaborate write up from SDH of the actual talks:
http://www.sexdrugshelvetica.com/recap-sex-drugs-helvetica-conference-2014
This whole experience wouldn’t have been possible without some incredible passionate and talented youngsters organising the event. As I mentioned on stage in my talk in Melbourne, at their age I was spending day and night in techno bunkers in Berlin. I was definitely not organising high-calibre creative events. So big props to Nick, Zac, Leisha and Andy (pictured below) for their work.
If you now feel like living on the wild side of design, with the right shirt to match your ‘tude, then here are the original T-shirts on the Sex, Drugs & Helvetica Shop: http://sex-drugs-helvetica.myshopify.com And see you at next year’s event.
Between 0 and 1 