Magnus Göransson is currently creating the play experiences of the future as Design Director at LEGO’s Creative Play Lab. He as previously designed products and experiences for many consumer goods companies like Nespresso, Skullcandy, Jabra and Sony Ericsson, professional equipment for Atlas Copco, Telesteps and Honeywell. But if he could pick what field lies closest to his heart he will always choose the medical sector; working for giants like Convatec, Coloplast, and Baxter, and also startups like Vivoline and Neurescue creating everything from implants and robot assistants to lung transplant machines. In the last ten years, he has also been a partner of Swedish Ninja, a furniture design studio and producer.

Maser is an artist originally from Ireland, now living in the USA. As early as 1995 under the moniker ‘Maser’, he began painting graffiti on the streets of Dublin, where he soon earned the respect of other graffiti artists throughout Europe for his unique abstracted style. After studying Visual Communication at Art School in his home city of Dublin, he went on to establish himself as one of Ireland’s leading visual artists working in the urban environment.

Originally an architect from London, Gareth has been working as a graphic designer in Dublin since 2000, providing design, illustration, art direction, identity and consultancy. He works predominantly in the creative arts sector, with a range of clients, including theatres and theatre companies, cultural organisations, universities, and architects.

Catherine is multi-disciplinary designer and art director working in Dublin. Holding a degree in Visual Communications from IADT, Catherine has worked both in-house with large multinational brands and in multiple agencies. Catherine is currently a senior designer in Red Dog where she combines a number of design disciplines such as art direction, experiential design, UX, consumer research and strategy for a wide variety of clients ranging from property, finance, not-for-profits, hospitality and the arts.

Peter Queally is creative director of Goosebumpº; a collective of creative thinking, strategic minded, award winning and often well-dressed individuals who come together to create great ideas, scribble notes, tell stories, drink coffee, give out, high five and play Pacman, from time to time. After unsuccessfully trying to make a living playing in numerous bands, drawing and writing comics, songs and poetry, and exhibiting paintings Peter now, in parallel with his Goosebumpº endeavors, is attempting to subvert pop culture and striving to bring back the cape as a fashion item… Or become Batman.

Tom Meenaghan is an award-winning designer of brands, campaigns, and experiences. He has worked with national and international companies such as Failte Ireland, National Museum of Ireland, the RDS, the Central Bank, and Philips. He is also the former co-founder and creative director of DesignWorks, an innovative creative firm known for its high-quality output.

Andreas is an interior architect with 18 years industry experience as principal of the design studio [innen] interior architecture. He also lectures part time on the honours degree course in Interior Architecture at Griffith College Dublin. Andreas has gained a reputation for achieving excellence in hospitality and workplace design, winning the 2016 Fit-Out Designer of the Year amongst other awards. He describes his mission and work simply as “creating experiences – Designing for people. Not more. Not less.”

Karen Hesse is the founder and Managing Director of 256, Ireland’s first content marketing agency. From their Dublin based studio 256’s team of 30 creatives and content natives serves a growing roster of clients with culturally relevant, multi-lingual content marketing across print, social and web. The agency has won five global awards in the last three years. Karen is also the creator and publisher of best-selling consumer brands House and Home and Confetti and is a certified mentor who has worked with the Crafts Council of Ireland and the Irish Management Institute.

Brian is a Director and Principal Designer at Each&Other, a strategic design agency. He is part of a team that leads business transformation programmes and customer experience projects with recent clients that include Google, Zurich International, Musgraves/Supervalu, Fleetmatics and SEE Airtricity. Brian has worked for OFFSET, done a stint at Google Ireland, lectured at UCD, DCU and DIT, and consulted for organisations on digital marketing, online community and strategy. Each&Other is an employee owned company that operates internationally from an old converted priory in Dublin and works across multiple sectors, including finance, enterprise, tech and both local and national government.

Lorna’s design career has been an interesting journey spanning more than 25 years, with stops in the world of fashion, wearable technology and, most recently, health care. She is a futurist at heart, recognised for her ability to anticipate shifts in the social, cultural and economic context for design. She was one of the pioneering researchers to focus on wearable technologies and built a reputation for research activity in this arena. She later identified the theme of health as an emerging arena for design to thrive. She founded and led the Human Wellbeing Group at the MIT Media Lab. Her vision was to employ human centred design principles to address the biggest challenges facing the healthcare industry in delivering population health outcomes.

She recently returned to Ireland from the USA to take up the position as the Group Design Director at Fjord in Dublin. As the Fjord studio in Dublin sits within The Dock, Accenture’s multi-disciplinary research and incubation hub, Lorna has a unique role placing design at the heart of the multi-disciplinary teams working on R&D projects addressing some of the biggest challenges facing society today.

As a Senior Design Advisor for products and services in Ireland, James Hubbard Co-Chaired the world’s first national standards on Universal Design. At the National Disability Authority’s, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, he manages research projects, develops design guidance, advises design policy and promotes education through, curriculum development and design challenge events. Previously he worked for over 20 years at universities in the USA, teaching, consulting and supervising new product development with a focus on design for Human Factors Engineering and Assistive Technology.

Angela Brady is a director of Brady Mallalieu Architects in London, an award winning private practice working on great projects. She also happens to be a TV Broadcaster, an OBE, a recipient of a Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and a previous President of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Bruno Maag is a trained typesetter from Zurich, Switzerland. After graduating from Basel School of Design with degrees in Typography and Visual Communications he emigrated to England where he worked for Monotype creating custom typefaces. After a year in Chicago with Monotype he returned to England to start Dalton Maag, focussing on the creation of custom typefaces.

Bruno today is the Chairman of Dalton Maag and in recent years has spearheaded projects for large global companies and small enterprises alike. Some of the clients include Nokia, Intel, HP, Amazon, Lush, Faena, The Stroke Foundation and Rio2016 to name a few. His interests today extend into scientific research into reading physiology and psychology. Bruno serves on both the board of Directors for ATypI and the Board of Trustees for D&AD.

Irish fashion writer and curator living in London, passionate about emerging global designers, consults to Shanghai Fashion Week, contributes to BoF, Vogue Italia, Now Fashion and Jing Daily. Curator of Hi! Fashion which looks at Irish and Japanese fashion at the National Craft Gallery this August.

Bren Byrne is Creative Director of Ways&Means Productions and co-founder of OFFSET. He worked as a professional illustrator, curator, designer and art director for over 10 years before setting up OFFSET. Bren, along with his co-director Lisa Haran, have developed this ever-expanding event into one of the world’s most inspirational, educational and vocational conferences for the design and creative industries. Approaching its 10th year, OFFSET regularly attracts over 2,500 attendees from all over the world to its Dublin home.

Barry Sheehan is Head of Design at the Dublin School of Creative Arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland. A fellow of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, Barry has been involved in the design of numerous projects from architecture and interior design to graphics, multimedia and product design. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers as well as on television. He is a regular commentator on design matters in the national media. He writes a running blog dedicated to the works of James Joyce, www.jj21k.com.

Garreth is a hybrid of sorts; part strategist, part creative. Strategy into creative is what he does. Garreth founded Indigo & Cloth in 2007 and has produced work for a wide range of organisations and individuals including Bono, Teeling Whiskey, Logitech and Eventrite.