“To think like a designer – you don’t need Post-Its and Sharpies. You just need to unlock your unconscious analogue expertise by s-l-o-w-i-n-g down. Trust your senses and your big blob of grey matter to provide the information you need. By slowing down, you create a space to unpick your feelings and motivations about a whole host of things, and it helps to have a checklist to run through so you don’t miss anything out.”
Janice Kirkpatrick, co-founder of Graven, was selected as one of eight key speakers at this year’s RBS Disrupt 2.0 which was attended by professionals, academics and leaders in the tech field. Janice shared the stage with a wide variety of speakers, including Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.
In her talk, Janice discusses how to be a creative by ‘unwrapping your inner designer’ to make sense of the world. At Disrupt 2.0 about unlocking your creativity and how that makes us most human; by using the process we call ‘design’ she explains how we can all collaborate in order to create an amazing future.
Unwrap your inner designer
Graven created and designed their own chocolate bar in collaboration with handcrafted Scottish chocolatiers, Cocoa Ooze, founded by entrepreneur Jamie Hutcheon. The bespoke packaging made for a visual and sensory experience to consider how we stop, slow down and think.
As can be seen below, the specially designed chocolate bar made guests think about their own design process and decision making. Asking questions at every stage of the experience, the chocolate bar acted as the prime example of the importance of well thought through, design led decision making by stopping, slowing down and thinking. Janice highlighted the importance of analysing everything around you, questioning it and looking for its message and purpose.
Janice mentions: “The principle can also be used to analyse much larger objects, so apply the same technique to buildings, places, products and people. Ask yourself… what’s the context within which a thing is positioned or displayed? Everything means something, so analyse it, peel back the surface layers, ask yourself questions-then listen to your answers, and keep drilling into them. Write and draw too because when you record what you’re seeing, and feeling, in a different medium, it can reveal more answers, or even a blatant fact that’s been hiding in plain sight.”
Evolving relationship between technology and design
The Disrupt 2.0 event had a panel of world class expert speakers discussing big innovation and societal advance that have a potential impact to change the world:
- Janice Kirkpatrick, Co-founder & Creative Director, Graven
- Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web
- Jennifer Zhu Scott, Founding Principal, Radian Partners
- Joseph Thompson, CEO, Aid:Tech
- Divya Chandler, Faculty, Singularity University
- Vivienne Ming, Faculty, Singularity University
- Andrew Fursman, CEO/Co-founder, 1QBit
- Greg Cross, Chief Business Officer, Soul Machines
With Graven placing the emphasis on innovative design with digital processes at the heart of this, it was the perfect event to showcase the Graven way of working.
About Disrupt 2.0
RBS annual conference, Disrupt 2.0, now in its second year, showcases a range of world leading tech and design led pioneers to Edinburgh to discuss how technological innovation can be harnessed to address social needs across the country.