Tag Archives: conference

Agency Open House Sydney

Posted on October 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

Register for our free event now: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/web-directions-agency-open-house-reactive-tickets-4776690209

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Next Wednesday afternoon, Sydney will see its first Agency Open House. You can visit and have a beer with people at places like Reactive, Host, Soap, Deepend Group, Digital Arts Network, Reborn, WeAreSocial, Pollen, TheFarm,Small Multiples or The Interaction Consortium.

Check out this Agency Open House microsite for Wednesday October 29 where you can also RSVP to the respective agency events. Rub shoulders with art directors, copywriters, uber-geeks, producers and strategy minds. Learn from their work exhibited, listen to talks, ask questions, make connections. You could score an internship, dream job or your next creative collaboration partner. As it is part of Web Directions 2014, expect some heavy hitters from their international speaker roster like Jessica Hische to maybe make a cameo appearance. Just saying….

Check out the full program to RSVP here

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We at Reactive are excited to partner with Web Directions & Creative Social to open our doors for a Sydney-wide Agency Open House So in particular we would love for you to join us at our office in Surry Hills next Wednesday afternoon (Oct 29), between 4-6pm. You can RSVP by registering online https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/web-directions-agency-open-house-reactive-tickets-4776690209

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What are Web Directions, Creative Social and this Agency Open House?

Since 2004, Web Directions has been Australia’s cutting edge conference that bring together the world’s most pioneering, interactive creative directors, business owners, strategists and other global experts of digital design and development. As a social warm-up for this year’s Web Directions (October 30-31) the aim of our joint Agency Open House is to have a beer and a chat, explore agencies’ work and workplaces and build some new connections. Reactive has been part of Creative Social since 2007 and together with this group of leading agencies, we recognise that collaborating in a digital landscape is how we will advance the whole industry and enjoy the journey.

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What’s the inspiration all about?

Reactive has been a partner of Web Directions for 3 years now. This year is particularly special as we were invited to create the opening title sequence for the conference. The film is completely HTML-generated and plays live in the browser, unlike traditional videos.

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One of our creatives involved, Melissa Baillache, explains the thinking behind the film:

“We wanted to touch on the importance of everyone that come together to imagine, design, create and build great digital products and services. The people, who passionately labour over the tiny details, behind the scenes as well as at the forefront of the digital world. In our film, all these individuals are represented by a ‘pixel’. Their stories evolve into playful geometric structures, yet always keep their original core—the element that binds everything together into a single experience.”

We’d be thrilled if you can stop by Reactive’s office for some beers, food and showcasing and explaining the tech behind the title sequence. Registering can be done by simply replying to this email or visiting the event page below:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/web-directions-agency-open-house-reactive-tickets-4776690209

We hope to see you next Wednesday arvo, guys!

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Posted in Advertising, apps, art, Convergence, design, interactivity, Mobile, Strategy

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Sex, Drugs and Helvetica with Reactive

Posted on October 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

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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. 

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Opening up was Chris Doyle, easily the funniest man in Design (go on, follow him on http://instagram.com/cdandco ).

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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.

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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.

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His series of Open Manifesto books are renowned the world over Screen Shot 2014-10-01 at 6.08.58 PMand he continues to work with global creative luminaries like Vince Frost, Stefan Sagmeister and Steven Heller on his trivia game DesigNerd.

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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).

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We at Reactive have already admired Michael and Build for their great character designs for Virgin America. Check them out, they are a hoot.

BLD_VA_WEB-01Here are more snap shot impressions from the ground: http://instagram.com/sdhelvetica and here is a live blog doco http://www.sexdrugshelvetica.com/liveblog2014 Screen Shot 2014-10-01 at 5.04.33 PM

Find below a more elaborate write up from SDH of the actual talks:
http://www.sexdrugshelvetica.com/recap-sex-drugs-helvetica-conference-2014

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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.

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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.

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Posted in design, Strategy

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My Ode to the Transformers – Dutch Digital Day

Posted on June 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

Today I will be speaking at the ‘Dutch Digital Day‘ in Amsterdam, an event held by the Dutch equivalent of AIMIA, called PIBN. Speaking with luminaries such as Joshua Davies, Gadi Amit (FitBit founder) and Sam Hashemi (UX for NASA) will be a treat (full line up of speakers here). In advance of my talk at Amsterdam’s hip location Undercurrent (below) I got interviewed and wanted to share some of my answers below:

The theme of Dutch Digital Day is Ode to the Transformers. What’s in your opinion the most transforming power in digital nowadays?

Simple: it’s still our brains! All means of production have become democratised, low cost and achievable. There are distributed teams, plenty of APIs, agile workflows and crowdsourced funding models. Even 3D manufacturing has gone into constant iteration and rapid prototyping. One day it’s getting produced in backyards or upstairs studios, the next day it’s in the app store, on the streets or in online shops, ready to be ordered and be transported to anywhere. There is absolutely nothing stopping any of us. And there are no more excuses why you can’t just create whatever you can think of.

Probably the most famous work you’ve been involved in was The Most Powerful Arm which changed thinking about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in Australia. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned working on this project?

That your best work comes from trusting relationships, from working with people you know, from small teams, from cutting the bullshit and just doing the work. Some things you will get wrong and you never have enough time or money. There are actually many things we could have done better with The Most Powerful Arm. But unless you are actually creating something, you are just talking about it.

It’s a beautiful demonstration of creativity, technology and data coming together. Do you have practical tips for people how to make this work?

Plenty of tips and most of them I will share on DDD. To keep it interesting till the day I am just giving away the headlines: Get Physical, Stir an Emotion, Go Mobile, Set a Goal, Simply the Tech, Build It and They Will Come, Re-use Your Ideas. And it will all be wrapped in an even bigger topic: football! Believe me, it will make sense (in a way).

You’re only 20 years old with a resume of someone who’s 35. What’s your story? (;-))

You’re so kind but I am not 20 years old anymore, unless you’re counting in robot years. I’m more like the 35+ you mentioned. So it might be that I simply spent my time like everyone else, inching forward day by day. 😉

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Posted in Advertising, Convergence, interactivity

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Field Trip Sydney 2013

Posted on August 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

As I am contributing to AustralianInFront I wanted to make everyone aware of the top creative event in August: Field Trip on Aug 30, that’s Friday next week at Darling Harbour.

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Taking the Powerpoint out of it, the presenters are practising their craft as they present. Really cool concept that puts the fun back into listening to a good ‘show and tell’. And it’s great inspiration for all you agency folks and your creative team members. See and hear from charming individuals like Georgia Perry, We Buy Your Kids and Heath Killen. And if you want to score some of the last tickets, hit me up for a code to get a 20% off at check out.

http://thefieldtrip.com.au/tickets

I look forward to seeing you next week for drinks, a chat and inspiration.

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