Currently living and working in Rotterdam, through his art, Tomáš Libertíny continually explores the beauty and intelligence of nature as well as probing into the existential questions of the human mind. He was awarded George Soros’s Open Society Institute Scholarship to study at The University of Washington in Seattle, where he focused on painting and sculpture. After receiving the prestigious Huygens Scholarship, he enrolled in the Masters program at the Design Academy Eindhoven where he received his MFA in 2006. While embracing today’s advanced methods of design and latest technology to explore and realise his art the works are still marked by the hand of the artist. His use of industrial precision is merely ‘”a means to an end” which enables him to set-up conditions for controlled randomness.

Tomáš comes to Eastern to talk about his art and how he manages to walk the line of industrial and natural approaches to creation.

Founder of the label and publishing house BiggBoss, one of the longest-running rappers on the Czech scene, member of the band PSH, a legend of the graffiti scene, artist, author of scenography for the experimental theatre group TOW, author of the book and documentary series Kmeny, author of the most extensive publication on the stigmatized pre-revolutionary architecture Architektura 58–89.

518 comes to Eastern to talk about drawing driving energy from the local context of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia when creating popular projects in the music, film and publishing industries.

Kickieʼs designs are bold, striking an emotion, yet are aesthetically pleasing, resonating with a broad audience. Having a strong eye for detail, Kickie believes things that are well designed and easy to use have a lasting value, since those are the ones to be kept and passed on to next generations. Trained as an Industrial Designer, Kickie founded her eponymous studio in 2020 in New York. She does commissioned work for International companies as well as designs collectible objects with the aim to elevate peoples experiences and bring a spark of joy into everyday life.

Kickie comes to Eastern to talk about balancing her expertise in between Industrial Design & Craft and her captivation by the timeless beauty of raw materials and empowering of cutting-edge technology.

Oficina studio is a pioneer of motion design in Czech Republic. Its founding members are Lukáš Fišárek, Marek Cimbálník a Vlaďka Cimbálníková with Jan Netušil joining later. In 2016 the studio started Muovo - an international conference on motion design and visual communication in Prague. Since then the city annually attracts the best creators of motion design and related disciplines from all over the world. They meet, inspire and create a global network of artists. Oficina creates visual systems, brands, TV brands, 2D and 3D animations, explainer videos, websites, interactive games and even installations.
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Jan & Marek come to Eastern to talk about how a pioneering studio becomes one of the most recognised creators of motion design in the country.

Michal Slovák is a graphic designer that specialises in creating visual identities and packaging. He’s worked on more than hundred projects with companies from all around the World - from Honduras through New York to Melbourne. His designs can be found on at least 40 million products. Some of the designs created for Lyra chocolate have received international and local recognition in form of various awards.

Michal comes to Eastern to talk about his success in creating recognisable and successful brands through distinct designs that move bring products closer to consumers.

Peter Olah is an industrial, product, and interior designer with plenty of experience of collaboration with international companies such as Škoda Auto, Volkswagen, Audi, Lamborghini, Ford, Adidas, Davidoff, MontBlanc, Heineken, or glassworks as Preciosa and Lasvit. His designs have received many international awards, among others multiple Red Dot Award, ICSID Design Excellence award and the Slovak National Prize for design. He currently works as Head of Interior Design at Škoda Auto and as well as Associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Design, Slovak Technical University.
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Peter comes to Eastern to talk about the future design development processes in the automotive industry demonstrated on the latest Showcar ŠKODA VISION 7S.

STRV is a design and engineering team that’s built digital products for Porsche, Microsoft, The Athletic, Autodesk, Barry’s and more. In its early days, STRV entered the industry with a bang by going after the big fish in Silicon Valley — quickly making STRV an app design and dev leader paving the way for others within the Czech Republic and CEE. Today, the team of 190+ is renowned across the world.
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Patrik and Ria are coming to Eastern to tell us exactly how STRV became a recognized player in a market as competitive as the USA. They’ll also share a look inside the design process that led to an STRV client winning the Apple Design Award for Social Impact.

Born in 1979, he is primarily a book designer. For over a decade he worked as a freelancer for the most prominent Polish publishing houses. Since 2008 he has been a co-owner of his own one, Karakter, where he publishes books on design and architecture, as well as high-brow literary fiction and non-fiction. He designed more than six hundred books. His hallmarks are attention to typography, and unusual juxtapositions of text and images. He is one of the most reknown Polish book designers.
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Przemek comes to Eastern to talk about running his own book publishing house and about whole process of creating spectacular book designs.

Current Designer of the year in Poland (PGD), multidisciplinary illustrator, graphic designer and researcher. Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and founder of the Art of Design curses and Karol Śliwka Foundation. An originator and curator (with Rene Wawrzkiewicz) of The Second Polish Exhibition of Graphic Marks, ILUSTRATOR – Illustrated Communication Festival. Author of the CPN. Logo, Identity, History book. He has co-operation among others, including brands and institutions such as Amnesty International, British Airways, New Scientist Magazine, Mondadori Libri and many more.
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Patryk comes to Eastern to talk about his versatile use of creativity influenced by the legacy of polish design tradition.

Banda is the most recognised Ukrainian creative agency, which now makes campaigns not only for brands but for the Ukrainian government and NGOs. After 2019, they return to Eastern in a different lineup and, sadly, in a different context. Over 80 people are working in the agency: some in Kyiv, others throughout Europe. Oleksii Dyvysenko is a creative director, Olesia Bondar is a copywriter. Together they made the first video about the full-scale Russian war 3 days after it started, and many other projects after that. During these months they went through all the stages of grief and learned how to work and create in a new reality.
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Oleksii and Olesia come to Eastern to talk about bravery.

A branding design studio from Krakow active since 2006. Otwarte is re-inventing brands, those with a long history and those that are just being born. Global and local, commercial and public, offline and online ones. By now they have designed over two hundred brands for products, companies, institutions, places and events, on their client list, there are cities, corporations, family businesses, cultural institutions, technological startups and even farmers' cooperatives. They take care of every stage of branding from naming, through communication strategy to designing and implementing complex visual identity systems.
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Otwarte comes to Eastern to talk about what makes a great team, how to build client relationships for years, techniques and flexibility in the branding process.

Saturday morning has become a tradition at our conference that we cannot give up. Phantom of the Eastern Design Conference, winner of the Oskar Čepan Award, musician, teacher, parent, artist, Džumelec. Erik Sikora is an exceptional artist based in Košice, whose work crosses the boundaries of genres and creates unique content directly connected to the local context.
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Erik comes to Eastern to explain and implement an unorthodox approach to creating visual and non-visual content that brings joy even from the mundane banalities of every day.