Are you wondering where to take your design career, or will your design career can take you? We participated in International Design Conference (IDC) in Chicago to support designers in their professional education and help them advance in their careers.

The IDC 2019 organized by the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) was held from August 20th to August 23nd in Chicago. This year, we hosted a pre-workshop the day before the conference. Jay Peters, Managing Director of PARK Academy (formerly known as Grow) USA presented two topics on Design Management & Design Leadership and Design Value to a sold-out audience. Around 50 participants who are mostly in senior level design or management roles in their organization partook in the training workshops. Participants left both informed and inspired by the content as well as equipped with practical knowledge & tools to apply to be further helpful in advancing their careers and driving the impact of design in their organizations.

The conference started with IDEA ceremony and Gala organized by The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) in which designers across the world got awarded for their innovative design ideas, products and prototypes. During the first conference day, designers across different disciplines attended the talks, networked with participants and learned a lot about the latest trends and challenges that the design field is facing. Design for sustainability, inclusive design, and design responsibility were some of the many themes that were discussed. Our PARK USA Director Jay Peters also did a rapid-fire presentation about Design for Humanity on the last day of the conference, showcasing how design must take responsibility to the triple bottom line results of all design & business/development.

To support the development of tomorrow’s design leaders, PARK Academy has teamed up with IDSA as a training partner to help designers step up in their careers into management and/or leadership roles. During this unique and inspiring conference, welcoming designers across many disciplines, the Grow team was present to help designers find the best professional training that fits their goals in growing in their design careers.

At our booth, we welcomed vice presidents of design, design managers as well as junior and senior designers and coached them about our 12-module program for their design teams, and our 1-day courses. We happily answered their questions and informed them that so many designers & development professionals (over 1000 to date) from many world-leading companies have participated in PARK Academy trainings and how the results speak for themselves!

PARK Academy also offered a raffle for a free 1-day course on one of our 2 of our popular modules. Lots of participants registered for the raffle and we chose 1 lucky winner to join us for our next training in Chicago.

Are you wondering how you can become a design leader or design manager? Do you want to support your design team and help them grow in their careers? Please visit the PARK Academy page.