On March 4th & 5th 2020, the Department of Design & Creative Media at LYIT will host the sixth annual DICE conference — which aims to spark a discussion on the value of creativity and design to both business and society.
We aim to speak to a wide audience and so this year, as per previous years, we have three distinct sessions.
Session 1
Wednesday March 4th – An Danlann from 6.15pm – MeetUp – Designing… Digitech!
In conjunction with NXNW this session will be highly engaging for those who are immersed in or plan to engage with, the design & digital technology sector – Registration is required
Session 2
Thursday March 5th – Rooms 1101 & 1102 from 10am – 12.30pm is pitched to suit TY students.
Speakers include award winning LYIT Design graduates, Kim Sharkey and Niamh Porter.
This Session has been reserved for visiting schools and is now fully booked.
Session 3
Thursday March 5th – Room 1452 from 1.30pm – 4.15pm is open to all students, staff, practitioners and design enthusiasts!
Speakers include award winning animation director Johnny Kelly and Mary Doherty — director of top Irish design studio Red Dog.
Meet the speakers
Johnny Kelly — Animation & Film Director
An Irish director known for his unique style, Johnny Kelly was a graphic designer before embarking on an MA in animation at London’s Royal College of Art.
Working with Nexus Studios, Johnny has directed commercials and other miscellany for brands such as Apple, Facebook, Google, BMW, and Coca-Cola.
Johnny garnered the Grand Prix for Film at Cannes Lions for his Chipotle film “Back to the Start” and he’s a proud member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. Nothing however has topped the Ronald McDonald toothbrush and cup he won for a colouring competition in 1984.
Mary Doherty — Managing Director Red Dog
Buncrana born Mary Doherty still runs Red Dog which she founded in 1993, nurturing the company and maintaining its position as one of Ireland’s leading and respected creative agencies.
Her vision and steadfast demand for excellent design has helped drive the creative team forward to becoming an internationally recognised, award-winning creative agency.
Mary has a significant level of expertise in developing brands that are now ready to move on, re-invent themselves or have found that they have simply outgrown’ their current visual and verbal brand identity. Mary is a qualified designer herself but now spends her time leading projects, working directly with clients and managing multiple stakeholders, running presentations and keeping a high level eye across the whole project from beginning to end – as well as running a successful company.
Mary has never worked anywhere else as Red Dog was established the morning after she graduated from college and still lives to their mantra of ‘We are good at what we do because good is never good enough’.
Eddie Shanahan — Product & Fashion Specialist
Eddie Shanahan specialises in business and product development for the fashion, craft and retail industries.
His clients include designers, retailers, state agencies, blue chip corporations and emerging talent, in both the Irish and international marketplaces.
He is a Board Member of Design & Crafts Council Ireland, Chair of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers, Chair of Showcase Ireland and a member of the National Design Forum. He regularly contributes to business and lifestyle programmes on radio and television.
Paul McMahon — 3D Designer & Director
Paul McMahon, aka The Rusted Pixel, is a 3D designer and director.
He has worked with brands such as Google, Snapchat, Disney Jr., Expedia, Hasbro, Oculus Rift as well as many others. His work and style is visually appealing, bold and colourful, and he always strives to retain a certain charm and simplicity in his work.
Design has always played a huge role in Paul’s life, and from a young age he wanted to be an art teacher, before discovering animation and 3D. He has developed his own signature style that has earned him some very exciting projects – his proudest moment is starting a colour blocking trend with “All the Things”.
Niamh Porter — Bachelor Fashion & Promotion
Niamh Porter, from Raphoe is a past graduate of LYIT where she was twice a finalist in the Irish Fashion Innovation Awards, was runner up in Donegal’s IBYE final, was featured in Lookbook and Hotpress magazine and was also the winner of the LYIT Johnny Boyle award for innovation.
After graduating in 2018 with a distinction in BA Fashion with Promotion, she moved to New York to pursue her career in fashion. For the last year she has worked for Romeo Hunte NYC, a luxury streetwear brand, as an assistant designer. During her time with the company she was a lead in the team, planning two New York Fashion Week shows, designed for the runway and created custom designs and styled clients such as Michelle Obama, Hennessy Carolina, Mary J Blige, and the Veronicas.
Now returned to Donegal she is establishing her own business focusing on creating sustainable textiles using only natural dye stuffs such as botanicals, plant matter, minerals, and food wastes.
Kim Sharkey — Freelance Visual Artist
Kim Sharkey’s journey as a West Donegal based freelance visual artist, who also studied Animation here at LYIT nearly five years ago, developed from a background as a ceramic artist. In this consuming combination of words, story, drawing, hand crafted and digital she felt creatively at home. This opened interesting artistic doors and led to many collaborations in artwork for books, visual development for animation, new ceramic products, and continued engagement with Arts education – in both setting up CPD courses for artists in Donegal, and working with the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland in their education department. Advances in technology, online connectivity and communication through social media, have all enabled Kim to continue to work from her coastal home in West Donegal.
Eileen Dunne — Darling / Carbon Coaching
Eileen Dunne is a graduate of NCAD, where she studied Visual Communication. She is a founder of Darling — a Design and Branding practice basedin Dublin.
She works across the corporate, cultural and charity sectors, from large global brands such as Diago, Sony and PlayON, to new brand creation. Eileen combines a love of design with a deep interest in psychology, having studied in Trinity before moving into design. Eileen has recently qualified as a Life & Executive Coach, and is deeply interested in exploring the intersection of neuroscience and creativity, and sharing strategies to support students and professionals in this field
Rebecca Walsh — Design Director at Big Motive
Rebecca has a background in Aerospace Engineering with over 10 years’ experience in innovation, human centred design and service design.
Rebecca started her career in Bombardier Aerospace working in aerodynamic design. Following this, she has worked with the voluntary and community, public and private sectors to promote service design and in particular human-centred design and design for citizens’ needs.
Rebecca is currently Design Director at Big Motive. She focuses on the delivery of high quality service and experience design projects.
Andrew McCrea — UX Strategist at Fathom
Andrew is UX Strategist at Fathom, Northern Ireland’s only dedicated UX Agency.
Andrew has been a UX professional for 5 years as part of 16 year career in digital, spanning experience in digital marketing, digital strategy, consultancy and project management at both client-side and agencies, including director level positions.
As UX Strategist Andrew takes responsibility for developing and evolving Fathom’s client services and project management functions and leads the development of strategic partnerships to help ensure that Fathom can provide holistic user experience and service transformation projects, across multiple locations and sectors.
Padraig Mannion — Design Principal at Vectra AI
Padraig is a Principal UX Designer at Vectra AI, and brings with him more than 10 years experience in enterprise software design.
Within that time, he has also founded and run two of his own companies. His passions lie in creating amazing software products, and working closely with others on how data science and AI can achieve this.