Walk the walk, talk the talk!

How it started…

In 2013, Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman started 40 days of dating. The designers were close friends and found themselves single and hopeless at the same time, so they thought they'd give it a go. They defined a set of rules, and throughout the experiment, they went on dates, texted, went to Disneyland, gifted each other stuff… you know the drill. They also depicted the awkwardness of dating in a series of short clips which flooded the internet, and the experience eventually turned into a book.

The love affair ended, but the friendship remained even stronger as it evolved into yet another (social) experiment: Twelve Kinds of Kindness.

As 2015 unfolded, Jessica and Tim (admittedly self-centred) both tried to treat people the way they would like to be treated by opening their hearts, eyes and minds. Along the way, they shared their stories and grew more empathetic towards themselves and others. In case you feel like practising yourself, here follow the aforementioned kinds:

Step 01: Can I Help you?

Step 02: Open Your Eyes

Step 03: Switch It Up

Step 04: Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Step 05: Forgive & Forget

Step 06: Face Yourself

Step 07: Kill Them With Kindness

Step 08: Walk a Mile in Their Shoes

Step 09: Go Big or Go Home

Step 10: Pay It Forward

Step 11: Wear a Smile

Step 12: Dive Deep

As Jessica reflected on Step 07: Kill Them With Kindness, referring to flagrant sexism and misogyny in the creative industry (particularly from women towards other women), considering the data (see image below) and concluding with the motto “promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate”, she decided to do something about it. Tcharan! Ladies, Wine and Design was born.

Ok, so… what is Ladies, Wine and Design anyway?

Eight years after it was originally created, the event has gained traction and spread out to 285 cities worldwide. As mentioned on the event’s website, it aims to empower women, non-binary and underrepresented creatives. All those who **feel they could benefit from a space meant for people who do not identify as cis men to share ideas and collaborate are welcome. Wine is not mandatory — coffee, tea… even ice cream work! Design is not necessarily the hot topic, as oftentimes, our careers are intertwined with our personal lives.

As a result, each event is unique. However, upon attendance, one is likely to find portfolio reviews, discussion panels, presentations, and drawing sessions, just to name a few. Discover how ours went below!

Ladies, Wine and Design at Significa.

We aim to bring long-lasting value to the world by designing and building digital products with a people-centric approach. We ask why, how and for whom we should build things so that we can understand the human value that we can bring to an end user's experience. On top of that, we are lucky to have a spacious office with big windows and a lot of chairs — and we love to entertain! Therefore, the opportunity to host events for a broad spectrum of audiences within our framework is something we are increasingly striving for.

With a team of such diverse backgrounds, from architecture degrees to masters in community work or curating art, the topic of this edition of Ladies Wine and Design couldn't resonate more with us! Paths in Design (originally “Percursos no Design”) was all about sharing experiences about different career paths and how intricate these can be.

We heard about Inês Costa’s exploration of multiple media, from illustrative collages to film, to convey stories close to her heart and question our collective national imagination.

We vibed to Luísa Silva Gomes’ energy as she guided us through the questions she paced her life and career by, concluding with wise words about patience and being… well… human! While you are here, take a look at graphicfearlesswomen, a project Luísa started with the aim of empowering and promoting women in graphic design.

We were awed at Joana Correia’s evolution from studying architecture to discovering the possibilities of communication design and the beauty of typefaces to learning how to run her own business at Nova Type Foundry while advising other professionals and teaching at the same time, phew!

And last but not least, we had Teresa and Rita from our own Design team chiming in on how they got to their Head of UI and Head of UX positions, what these entail, and which are the biggest challenges of running teams and learning on the job. We can say they kicked ass!

In the end, we toasted with wine TAU to all of these brilliant women and the folks in the crowd too! We were happy to notice there were a lot of young professionals trying to figure out their own paths, and it warms our hearts to know we took a part in demystifying the restlessness that is natural to (begin) navigating careers in the creative industry.

We want to thank Mariana Simões, Ana Leite, Laura Rodrigues, and Sofia Bento for sharing Ladies, Wine, and Design with us, to Jessica Walsh for pioneering the event, to all our team members who got the office cosied up and ready, and to Nanda, who helped us clean up after wine turned into pizza!

I earnestly hope to write to you again soon with news of more events to come as we continue to walk the walk and talk the talk.

Cheers!