Dribbble Philippines: Manila Meetup 02
One of the biggest meetups for the creative community in Manila.
It was a pleasure to organize the second Dribbble Philippines: Manila meetup and it was an absolute success! Held last September 1, 2016 at the amazing office of Canva Manila. It was a night of fun, learning, networking, opportunities, and awesome food!
The Preparation
Despite not being in the same office or district, the administrators of Dribbble PH: Manila, with each person assigned to a specific committee, managed to organize and prepare everything needed to conduct what is possibly one of the biggest meetup for the creative community in Manila.
Contacting Canva Manila
We decided to contact Canva to be our partner because we believe that the Dribbble Community and Canva have the same vision: Democratising design, believing in the power of design, and that anyone can be creative. We know the Canva vibe is the perfect place to host a meetup for creatives.
Contacting the Speakers
Since we know that Canva houses some of the best designers in Manila, it is wise to get a Canva-represent as our first speaker: Jay Santos.
Another prospect speaker we had even since the first Dribbble Manila Meetup was Aceler Chua, Founder of The Missing Bulb, creator of Type Philippines, and former Design and Tech Lead of Philippine Web Designers.
Lastly, we contacted Christian San Jose, Founder of CreateDigital Inc. (formerly Create.ph), and now the Head of Creative Technologies at MullenLowe Group Philippines.
With a power line-up like this, we know that the audience will look forward to it.
The Overwhelming Registrations
The venue and speaker line up is ready, so it’s time to let the people know and have them register to the meetup via Ticketbase. We informed Canva that we only expect a maximum of 50 people to attend, minus around 20% of no-shows.
In less than a week, the slots are already full! But of course we expect no-shows so we made a waitlist. After less than a day, we noticed how fast the waitlist is being filled up. After 33 waitlist registrations, we decided to stop ticket sales.
We informed the attendees days before the event to tell us if they would cancel their registration to give way to the waitlist, so we can make room for those who would take their time to come.
Hours before the event and only 2 attendees contacted us about relinquishing their slot.
The Meetup
The Canva Team had already set up most of the stuff: projectors, food preparations, and seats when we organizers have arrived. We were overwhelmed by the number of attendees, we can say that we probably reached 50-60 people! Only 9 people from the attendee list didn’t make it, which made way for people in the waitlist, both those who are informed with slot confirmation and those who still went to the venue just hoping someone will be a no-show. We gave out Dribbble freebies to the early birds (big thanks to Dribbble HQ!).
We started the meetup by 6:30PM. Since this is only the second Dribbble meetup and majority of the audience are first-time attendees, we made a quick intro about how Dribbble Philippines started and the goals of the community.
The Speakers
The first design talk was by Jay Santos, he spoke about Change: how inevitable it is in the design industry and how to cope with it.
Next speaker was Aceler Chua, with the topic From Adhesion to Design: focusing on making design functional instead of just aesthetics.
Lastly, Christian San Jose, who talked about his Creative journey: from doing what he loves to do, earning from it, building his own creative studio, and never stop doing what you’re passionate about.
Hanging Out
After the informative design talks from the speakers, we had a short break and lined up for the food, prepared by Canva’s in-house chef, and everyone loved it!
Being gathered in a table is the perfect opportunity for everyone to network. It’s lovely to see people networking with other people whom they just knew that day.
Opportunities
The Dribbble Manila Meetup is the perfect meetup for people who want to hire creatives, promote their company or event that’s related to creativity and design.
First we have Philippine Web Designers Organization’s Form Function and Class: a web design conference created by volunteers and dedicated to the local community in Asia. PWDO was generous enough to give all Dribbble Philippines members discount to the FFC Conference! http://bit.ly/ffc7-dribbbleph
Next was Canva, they’re looking for Off-site Layout Designers. This team works remotely and creates fresh and usable layouts for their online marketplace weekly. https://about.canva.com/careers/manila/graphic-designer-offsite/
Closing
Before finishing up the event, Canva gave tote bags and stickers to all attendees! We also gave out Dribbble Invites! We collected portfolio links of the attendees during registration and picked out which ones deserve an invitation to be a player in Dribbble.
Thank you
Thank you so much to everyone who attended the Dribbble PH: Manila Meetup!
We are overwhelmed by the support that everyone gives to the Dribbble Philippines: Manila community! Thank you so much to our partners:
Dribbble for the support and meetup kit! We felt the love straight from Dribbble HQ USA! And to UI8, Sticker Mule, and Stocksy United for the freebies!
Canva Manila for the creative venue, freebies, and awesome food! Thanks to every Canva individual who made this one of the best meetups for creatives!
Philippine Web Designers Organization for the support for the design community and discounts to the Form Function & Class web design conference: a pioneering web design conference in the country!
the speakers, for sharing their wealth of knowledge to everyone who attended and of course, the audience! This meetup is a hundred times better because many of you took time to attend this meetup!
Thank you and we are looking forward to seeing you again!
