Behind the Design: Attendee gift bags for TEDxUbud

Our attendee gift bags are one of our favorite things to put together for our guests. When we start the process of thinking about what we want to give our attendees we want to make it as practical, beautiful and durable as possible. The last thing we want is for the attendee to get home after the event and throw everything into the trash.  

Starting with the bag itself, we ensure it's something people will want to use again and again. Some of our 'frequent flyer' attendees still use all their editions on a weekly basis. This year we created a backpack style, perfect for both men and women and for people on motorbikes every day. We also design the bag itself to have minimal branding; no one wants to be a walking billboard. 

Then we turn our attention to curating the contents of the bag. Everything is chosen to be useful at the event itself or to be something the attendees can use at home to remember the day by. We are very lucky to be in Bali- home to some of the world's most talented artisans and creators. 

This year we had a mixed nut and dried fruit snack by Bali Buda, a health food institution in Bali; Utama Spice's all natural and highly effective bug spray for dusk; Krakakoa's amazing Indonesian sustainably grown and fair trade chocolate; a beautiful bangle by Aum Rudraksha; a traditional Indonesian ikat sachet of cloves and screen printed bookmark with a prayer of creation by Threads of Life; and a set of wooden reusable cutlery to use at the event and then during ongoing travels. 

We chose to create a set of cutlery because while we could buy bamboo disposable cutlery for the event, we thought it would be a good way to also remind attendees of their impact on the environment and the role 'single use' anything plays in that. 

Why our team takes time off for Creative Day

As a team, we take a day off each month to go on a creativity refresh adventure we call Creative Day. We've been to local museums, learned how to throw a bowl in a local ceramics studio, explored the process of printing with gelatin and more. Each time we've explored something none of us is particularly good at. The benefits of getting off our computers and up close with real materials is priceless. 

Sometimes our Creative Days have led to us adopting some of the skills learned into our work. 

Our limited edition Elami and Co mugs created with Sari Api Ceramics.

Tests for a collage requested by a client featuring Sophia Loren and gelli prints.

Our most recent Creative Day had us diving into the world of skills surrounding Balinese offering making with the team from Make a Scene Bali, also behind the TEDxUbud stage design this year. 

Instead of making offerings we created some wild and wonderful flower crowns. 

For an interview with Chloe, the creative force behind Make a Scene, head over to  Make A Place. 

Get to know: Jono Russell discusses vinyl love and earth friendly food

We've had the pleasure of working with Jono to launch his brand new baby- a bouncing two-level modern Italian restaurant called DUMBO in Ubud, Bali. We'd love to introduce you to this DJ turned restauranteur. 

Photo by Arley Mardo for TEDxubud

What was your vision in building these 3 restaurants in Bali?

The underlying brands or concept between all three of them (The Elephant, Green Ginger Noodle House and DUMBO) is called 'earth-friendly food'. And the meaning of that is that we try and create good food for people that is good for the body and spirit, but also good for the environment. As good as we can be. So we try to reduce our environmental impact through the production- whether making sure that the restaurant uses the right ingredients (local, organic), to recycling and composting, and not using disposable packaging. People come for holidays in Bali, they look at the garbage problem and think it's terrible, but they don't actually take responsibility for their own garbage. They are on holiday and creating garbage, but out of sight, out of mind. We want to make sure at least we are trying to take care of that and be responsible when serving people.

These 3 restaurants, do they share special characteristics?

The main characteristic of these 3 restaurants is that they are all vegetarian because that's my professional preference and my professional philosophy, but also because it’s more environmentally and ecologically sustainable. Vegetarian food is more efficient and less carbon intense, so in the future the planet is going to need more people who eat vegetarian food. There are more vegetarian and vegan people already and we want to make it easier to change by making delicious vegetarian food easily available. Some people in the past had the perception that vegetarian is boring- too healthy, not crunchy, not salty, not delicious. We try to change that perception and also targeted this niche in the market, for people who want to eat responsibly.

You have a background as DJ. Does that affect the mood of the restaurants?

Yes, for 20 years. I DJ'd in Sydney, and then Byron Bay and then Bali. But I used to travel a little bit, I wasn’t an international DJ going around the world, but I played in Tokyo, in Italy or in London. I just had records and traveled. Then I moved to Bali and I was DJing at Kudeta, Potato Head, anywhere that was cool.

We have a pretty good reputation for good music in the restaurant.  If we didn’t then I would be embarrassed. It bothers me at the moment.  I don't like using streaming services because I really like to curate music- every song that gets played on the playlist at The Elephant and Green Ginger and DUMBO, I have picked personally. So in a month, there are 31 playlists that never sound the same. There are maybe some songs repeated, but the playlist is different every day and it changes from morning to middle of the day, through to the night, when it takes on a different energy, different vibe.

In DUMBO at the moment,  we are going for more a mixture of funk and hiphop and electronic music. At The Elephant and Green Ginger, it is a very eclectic mix. We have 80s music, we have some classical music, we have dub and reggae, and pop and folk. It is really eclectic but all carefully chosen to suit the mood in terms of time of day. 

Are you still actively DJing?

Only here at DUMBO. I appear as my alter ego DJ Rocco Stromboli. At DUMBO, we also do Aperitivo hour every Friday afternoon. I'm looking forward to curating a vinyl listening night once a month with some other vinyl junkies.

What's your sound system like at DUMBO?

There are 3 components of our sound system—a really old 45 year old amplifier and tuner and the turntable, which is actually from 2017. It’s new but nothing changes in the technology really. It’s still just playing records. Behind the bar, we have two speakers from the 80s. It’s not the greatest sound you’re going to get. They are not high quality, but it’s definitely enough for this space. I don’t think you’re going have audiophiles coming and going “wow”.  We’re going to make a queuing system, where people will come and put the record aside—like a jukebox playlist sort of thing.

Photo by arley mardo for TEDxUBud

Inspiration: Pop up dance performances in Ubud market

In late April, we caught a glimpse of an upcoming Ubud dance event across our Instagram feed, not necessarily an unusual occurrence for Ubud. But in this case, how the organizers described the event caught our eye and we headed to the market on a Sunday to see what was happening. With seven 'stages' in total, in various parts of the market that would never be considered as suitable for a dance performance, the dances were progressive.

As one finished, the next began without any warning or fanfare, dancers often just appearing from within the crowd and melting back into it when they finished. Some dances were performed entirely in silence.  Eight dance groups participated in the event, organized by Karang Taruna Sadha Jaya of Ubud. 

The market sellers and tourists paused their activities, often looking slightly perplexed. Motorbikes navigated to avoid collecting dancers. 

Jasmine Okubo brought her beautiful contemporary dance to the stairs of the market, followed by her little noodle bowl attendees and the bakso seller. To see more of Jasmine, watch her gorgeous 2017 TEDxUbud performance. 

We all moved into Puri Saren, led by the dancers. After a few minutes wait and wondering if the event had ended as suddenly and quietly as it began, all the groups came together to perform the last piece, dancing on every surface of the Puri. 

On the main stage, a completely conventional legong performance with a full gamelan took place, holding every tourist's eye.

But as you looked around, you realized the legong dance was being performed in three other places, by dancers dressed in old-fashioned costumes.  Often the dancers were dancing without an audience as only the performers on center stage captured the tourists' attention. 

Behind the Design: Lighting the way

In our quest to reduce waste in our events, we no longer print our speaker biographies to give to TEDxUbud attendees as we found too often that people were just throwing printed material away.

This year we designed and built our own blocks wrapped in printed cloth which doubled as lanterns after dark, helping attendees to navigate the space. 

We also included some of the optical illusions that originally inspired us and the logos of the sponsors who helped make this event possible. 

A waste report for TEDxUbud 2018

We've always worked with Eco Bali Recycling to manage our waste from TEDxUbud and make a strong commitment to reducing use of plastic and single-use items. However, this year was special as Eco Bali co-founder Paola Cannucciari helped us to plan a more assertive waste sorting system for attendees.

For the first time, we had an organic and food waste bin and a goal to divert as much trash as possible into recycling and compost instead of adding to Bali's horrible landfill problem. 

Paola and her team took all our waste away after the event and promised to send us a full report after they sorted and weighed the waste. True to her word, we received some great data back from the team and a renewed commitment to beating the benchmarks set this year in the future. 

Over a period of 7 hours, 650 people produced over 400 kilograms of waste! Over 85% of that was recycled or composted by the Eco Bali team.  It was also very encouraging to see plastic only made up 2.6% of the total waste generated. 

Behind the Design: TEDxUbud Speaker announcements

The theme for TEDxUbud for 2018 is Seen/Unseen. When we started casting around for ideas for this year's visual identity we kept coming back to the idea of optical illusions: images that appear and disappear; spectrums of light and what is invisible to the naked eye; and tools that let us see into and past the surface, like MRI and Xray machines.  Our exploration and research took us down some amazing rabbit holes. We found a pack of these cards featuring classic optical illusions that every graphic designer learns in their first year of school and we keep finding them all over our desks as we discover another card we love. 

We also made a choice to bring as much color as possible into the design for 2018, pulling on inspiration from infrared and ultra violet images. 

The speaker announcements came alive with a fun and dynamic vibe. We incorporated the iconic X in the background and the TED red in a few of the flyers. 

Behind the Design: Launching TEDxUbud 2018

Updated: In April 2018 we were very saddened to hear of the sudden passing of this very talented artist. We extend our condolences to his friends and family. 

The theme for the 2018 edition of TEDxUbud is Seen/Unseen. When we saw Gentur Suria's work, we immediately knew how we wanted to announce the TEDxUbud date and theme for 2018. 

The event itself will be exploring topics related to the visible and invisible, the tangible and intangible, of the world around us so it was interesting to explore a 'hidden in plain sight' announcement on TEDxUbud's social media. When we started to get feedback regarding how long it took people to understand what they were looking at, or when they told us the images disturbed them in some way, we realized it had worked perfectly. 

Working with a designer (four paths)

This is a repost from Seth Godin's blog—one of our favorite blogs. We keep it here for reference.

Most of us want to look good online, need a website, maybe even a logo. More and more individuals and organizations are discovering that they need to hire a professional.

It comes down to doing your homework. Be clear with yourself before you spend a nickel or a minute with a designer. This difficult internal conversation will save you endless frustration and heartache later.

Here are four postures to consider in working with a good (or great) designer:

1. I know what I want. Bring your vision. Bring in your folder of typefaces, images, copy. Be very, very specific. The more you paste it up and sketch it out, the more likely you'll get exactly what you were hoping for.
    
2. I'm not sure exactly, but I know what it rhymes with. Put together a scrapbook. Find examples from other industries. Do you want your website to look like one from Apple or a direct marketing diet book site? Don't tell the designer what to do, but be really clear what you want to remind people of. Originality isn't the primary goal of design, effectiveness is.
    
3. I'm not a designer, but I understand state change. Do you want this work to increase trust? Desire? Confidence? Urgency? Who's it for? What's it for? If you can be really clear about what the work is for, then hire someone you trust and give them the freedom to find a way to cause that change to happen.
    
4. I'll know it when I see it. Please don't do this unless you have a lot of money and a lot of time (and a very patient designer). This demand for telepathy is for amateurs.

Simple Ways to Make Your Event More Green

Living in Bali, every day we come face to face with the consequences of bad waste management. We've always made a huge effort to make our events as ‘trash free’ as possible. One of those ways is to make sure our attendees don't need to bring or buy the dreaded one-use plastic Aqua bottle. 

We do this by providing each guest something to drink from, like these glasses below from Bali Recycling, and free refills of water using Kopernik's Nazava water filters throughout the venue. 

For past events, we've also given each guest a metal water bottle...

...or provided them with a bamboo cup—freshly cut bamboo gently sanded so it was ‘lip friendly’. 

We've also teamed up with Jenggala Ceramics to do a limited-edition mug for each guest to use at the event and then take home. 

We recommend looking into the Avani line of products, including compostable paper cups for hot drinks and wooden spoons and forks. They go perfectly with the traditional Balinese ingke we use as plates, which are lined with fresh banana leaves. 

If you'd like to work with us to go even more ‘radically green’ for your next event and help save this beautiful island we call home, get in touch!

8 Favorite Tools to Coordinate Event Communications

It all boils down to good communication, whether externally with attendees or internally with the team and our partners. We have a few apps and tools we swear by to minimize the chaos and crossed wires of event life. And of course, they're all mobile-friendly because our phones are our lifelines. 

1. WhatsApp

Such an amazing tool for both pre-production and event day. You can send files and photos, locations, voice notes and more. We create different groups based on tasks and needs. It's a brilliant and fast way to get volunteers onto a problem quickly on the day and to share pictures from different areas of the venue. And you'll never have the 'missing email' problem with this app. 

2. Todoist

For assigning tasks and checking them off. Great for core team duties and keeping track of what's left to do. 

3. Dropbox Sign

This one is a must for contracts and making sure both parties have copies and details of their obligations. 

4. Zello Walkie Talkie

Zello is a free push-to-talk application for smartphones and tablets. It's lightweight, easy to use and extremely fast. Just push the button to talk. You most likely won't have to configure anything to start using it.

5. Airtime

Airtime is another great way to communicate within teams. It’s like Apple’s FaceTime but with the added bonus that you can have up to six participants on one video call.

The screen is split so you can see everybody who’s on the call and you can set up named groups with pre-defined members. When you need to consult your team, simply hit the Signal button to bring everyone together. (via Eventbrite)

6. Dropbox

An obvious one, but we couldn't leave it out. Great for sharing assets like logos, promo pictures, site plans, sponsor packages, speaker packages, and rundowns. Everything lives in our team folder and gets accessed within seconds across devices. 

7. Ummo

Coaching speakers is a big part of the job of a TEDx Curator. This app helps our speakers to hone their presentation skills.

It acts like a virtual speech coach, analyzing the speech as you talk for pace, word power, clarity, and filler words like “ums”, “ahs”, “like” and “kind of”.

Speakers can press the record button, deliver their speech and then see how many words per minute they were talking on average. Then drill down and see how the speed altered throughout – kept a steady pace or started rushing? Ummo also gives a percentage score for clarity and lets the speakers set their own filler words and phrases for tracking.

8. Thumbly Keyboard

A phone keyboard that can be used one-handed! The app uses fast, gesture-based, controls to help you navigate the keyboard and autocorrect with one hand, and it’s really efficient.

Behind the Design: The TEDxUbud Badges

Badges hold a special place in the design heart of our Co-founder and Creative Director, Daniela Burr. She says it's a perfect way of making an attendee feel special from the moment they step in through the door. This year the search for the perfect TEDxUbud badge began with the idea of laser-cut. 

In a nod to traditional Balinese shadow puppets and our venue, The House of Masks and Puppets, we created a badge that attendees could play with using a light source and project their names onto other surfaces once night fell. 

Designing for laser-cutting (handled by the wonderful team at 9Box) brought its own set of challenges. The only font suitable was a stencil font. We settled on Rufina. Rufina was created from dark-text on light-background combinations, making it sharper and arguably better for quick viewing in such a dark environment. Most of its letter strokes are separated on the hairline, which allows the same kind of “invisible” readability, and is sort of a pattern among well-designed stencils.

The lanyards were gorgeous strips of handmade batik silk using leftover fabric from the masterminds behind Quarzia. We threaded the silk through two holes for added stability and to stop the badges from flipping over. 

The big and very visible name badges are an important part of any TEDx event—they help people to get to know fellow attendees and build a sense of community. 

Behind the Design: Branding of TEDxUbud 2017

This year we really wanted to design the event materials with bright colors for TEDxUbud. Focusing on the event theme of 'Make the light' and exploring the play of light as night falls, we created these three color gradients for the TEDxUbud 2017 branding. Blue for the last light before night falls, purples for sunset and dusk, and green for the elusive aurora lights. 

The experience banners were printed to hang from trees throughout the event venue—to help attendees navigate the area and let them know about all the cool things that were happening off the stage. 

With our speaker flyers we wanted to include white space to give the layout balance and chance for the eye to rest. We wanted the attention to be on the speakers themselves—the 'spotlight' of the design. The inclusion of a subtle unique constellation was a nod to the event being held under the open sky at night. Many of the traditional TEDx design elements were incorporated, including use of Helvetica and the red/black/white colors for the logo. 

Finally, our quote postcards. A fun way to surprise attendees—we leave them hidden around the venue on the day for attendees to find and take home. 

Inspiration: Exploring Vivid Sydney Light Festival

On a trip to Sydney to attend TEDxSydney, we were so excited to find we would be there for the incredible Vivid festival—a 23-day celebration of light and ideas held around Sydney's CBD. We walked over 10 kilometers in one night and only managed to see around 60% of all the installations and experiences on offer. A mind-blowing experience!

Some of our personal highlights were:

• Freedom of Movement
  Not only an amazing installation of moving swings, lights and music,  but also one of the coolest brand activations we've ever seen. Ford Australia was so well represented by this piece. 

• Landscape of the Mind
  Anatomical drawings of what stress and anxiety do the body on six panes of glass. Created with the Black Dog Institute as part of their mission to raise awareness of mental illness. 

• Parallax
  Suspended above a busy pathway, it made us stop, look up and get lost in the differences created by moving a few feet left or right. One of the few installations that didn't rely on intense color. 

• Organic Vibrations
  The projection mapping over the MCA's facade was hypnotic. It felt like we could have stayed for hours just watching the layers and shapes morph. 

• Uncovered World
  Loved the interactive nature of this piece tucked away in a tiny courtyard in Sydney's oldest streets. 

• Canon HQ
  Another phenomenal example of experiential marketing and brand activation. The Canon team created an incredible space where you could bring your camera chip and print any of your Vivid photos at any size. They also had a photo studio, a Canon equipment lending library, and photographers on standby to advise on better low light photography. And even pre stamped envelopes to send your printed photos to anyone in Australia!

Browse all the installations on the Vivid Archive.