This Saturday at Inside Job: AIGA Houston’s first ever conference for in-house designers, in addition to the three primary keynotes that attendees will have access to, there will be two breakout sessions at the conference and attendees will be able to choose from any of three specific topics to gain additional hands-on insights regarding in-house design.

Breakout Session Topic A: Stefan Mumaw | Creative Director, Callahan Creek
Habit (inspired by Mumaw’s book: Caffeine for the Creative Mind)

Are your ideas flimsy? Do you feel like your ideas scamper away in the dark and hide the moment you share them? Are you jealous of those rocking few who seem to come up with novel, creative solutions to even the most hard-nosed of problems, the kind of ideas that are uttered along side angelic voices while beams of light fall from the heavens? Good, because Callahan Creek Creative Director and Caffeine for the Creative Mind author Stefan Mumaw has the plan to turn your creative output from sparse to habitual. “Habit” explores where creativity hides and how you can generate ideas in greater quantity and quality, regardless of your position on the corporate ladder or the project’s insane restrictions. This is done workshop-style with a variety of creative exercises to amplify points, done at the attendees’ butcher-paper-covered tables littered with markers, pens, colored-pencils, crayons and anything else they could want to document ideas as they come, right there on the table itself. Don’t settle for routine thoughts and stale solutions from you and your team, crank up your ideation and learn how to boost the potential of your concepts.

Breakout Session Topic B: Evan O’Neil | Creative Director of Design & Media, New Living
Designing for your Mission

Social responsibility and a mission to build to a better world is now integral to any company that hopes to be relevant in the 21st century. Once your company plans meaningful initiatives, the creative team has a vital role of communicating those initiatives and missions to all invested parties. In this breakout session, we will discuss how to efficiently carry through a mission statement to everything your creative team produces.

Breakout Session Topic C: Kelly Stevens | Art Director, Whole Foods
Branding from the Gut

In 30 years Whole Foods Market has grown from a tiny natural food market in Austin to a booming global natural food retailer, and in the process has redefined what a grocery store can be. As the in-house design team grew to meet the needs of the unconventional, organically growing company, they were confounded by the borders of traditional branding.

So the team has embraced a new way of designing… from the gut. Kelly Stevens, Art Director at Whole Foods Market Southwest Region for nearly 11 years, will discuss the trials and tribulations of a growing team in a hyper-speed business. And how they are embracing their home-grown brand to drive design from the core values of the company, leading with what feels right and true for the brand, regardless of typeface.