Sign up or learn about what the coffees are on our home page.

Instructions for participating

Hello and welcome to your Virtual Design Coffee, thank you for taking part!

Theme for this round

What are some of the most important challenges design should be focussing on this year?

Inspiration for this theme comes as November is the month of COP27, which also means the Design for Planet conference. The theme can be a starting point to your conversation. You do not need to cover this and you will not be asked to report back on your conversation.

Key information

You and your partner for this round have been CC’d in the email. These are the contact details for you to connect on
One of you needs to initiate the conversation, it doesn’t matter who. Use the email as a starting point to arrange a virtual coffee
You have until the end of March 2023 to have this coffee
If you’d like to skip the next round, please let me know in reply to the email by the last week of March

Guidelines

We recommend that you aim for a 20-30 minute video chat, and it is usually a good idea to agree in advance on a couple of topics you’d like to cover. The subject(s) of your conversation do not have to be related to design, but sharing some of the things you’ve been working on or are interested in has often been a good starting point. Otherwise, feel free to use the suggested theme above.

You can use any video-conferencing platform of your choice. It is up to you and your partner whether you do cameras on or off, but consider that seeing each other may make for a more convivial atmosphere.

Troubleshooting

If you’ve been paired together before:

So sorry! We’ve been doing these since April 2020, so it’s almost impossible to avoid this sometimes.
If you’d like a new pair, reply to the email and I’ll arrange that. If you’re happy to meet your partner for the second time, go ahead!

Struggling to receive my emails:

I suggest you add barbara.mertlova@gmail.com to your contact list. If this doesn’t help, please get in touch with me directly to resolve the issue.

If you can’t reach your partner:

Please let me know and I will follow up.
If you are no longer able to do the meet up yourself, please consider your partner and let them know. CC me in your cancellation of the meeting as I will offer alternative arrangements to your partner.

Need to accommodate for your time zone:

Please get in touch with me if you are in a timezone that has made it difficult to organise those coffees. If I have a note of your time zone, I can try to rejig the random pairing a little where possible! 🙂

Withdraw from the coffees

If you want to skip a month, pause indefinitely, or completely withdraw, please let me know in an email. I appreciate your help with this as it avoids missed coffee opportunities for interested participants.

Quick note on timelines

The period coming up to Christmas – whether you celebrate it or not – tends to be busy for our workloads. I’m leaving more space for you to organise this upcoming coffee to account for that.

In general, I am working on revising the timelines of the coffees, to represent the changing needs of the world and our work as Designers. If you have any thoughts on the frequency and general timings of Virtual Design Coffees, please let me know!

Feedback

I appreciate all your feedback – please email me at barbara.mertlova@gmail.com with comments or questions. I hope you enjoy your coffee!

Barbara

Have you noticed anything that doesn’t work well?

We are keen to improve this website in any way that makes it easier to use for everyone. Please email your comments to barbara.mertlova@gmail.com