Order the 2013 Sessions
We are now offering on-demand passes for $95.
We are now offering on-demand passes for $95.
300 South Main Street, Grapevine, TX 76051
Video from 2012
Pick up your badge and enjoy some coffee as you connect with other awesome peeps just like you.
Dave Onkels will be MC'ing this years Circles Conference.
Everywhere, all the time. Like any good dreamer, it’s hard to get this guy to sit still. Dave Onkels co-leads Dotvita, a web design studio that mixes entrepreneurial thinking and a passion for beautiful, people-focused design.
With a diverse background that started in retail strategy and store environments, Dave has worked with many brands including Bose, Sprint, AT&T, Sears, Costco and Best Buy. He founded the online startup Magnt.com, one of the first personal landing page generators and serves as editor for Appvita, a curated blog for finding emerging web apps.
Dave has a deeply-rooted desire to help small businesses fight the odds and grow–and he's not afraid to take risks along the way. He works side-by-side with his wife and they have two lovely girls plus a plethora of pets. In his spare time, Dave likes to fly airplanes.
Topic: Building A Better Us (You and Me)
Josh Hemsley is head of design at MyEnergy.com where he handles product direction, visual design, and front-end development. Prior to joining MyEnergy in 2010, he co-founded a small design agency called Fixel, as well as led design projects for brands including Disney, P.F. Chang’s, Taylor Guitars, Asics and others.
Over the past few years, Josh has spent his additional time helping a few start-up companies get off the ground, most notably, Sevenly – a charity driven e-commerce platform featuring limited-edition awareness products.
Most are unsure of where Josh actually resides, but you can often find him either snuggling with his wife and two kids by a winter’s fire in the Pacific Northwest or at a Los Angeles Angels game in sunny Southern California.
Topic: You Need To Love Your Work For Others To Love It Too
Lotta Nieminen is an illustrator, graphic designer and art director from Helsinki, Finland. She has studied graphic design and illustration at the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Rhode Island School of Design, and has worked as a freelancer in both fields since 2006. After working for fashion magazine Trendi, Pentagram Design and RoAndCo Studio, Lotta is now a full-time freelancer based in New York City.
In 2010, Lotta received the Art Directors Club Young Guns award and was selected by Print magazine for its annual New Visual Artists review, highlighting 20 international rising designers under the age of 30. In early 2012 she received the esteemed Junior Award at the Best of the Year advertising and design competition in Finland. Lotta has given talks at the Apple Store in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design and La Cambre University in Brussels, Belgium. She has illustrated for the likes of clients such as Hermès, New York Times, Volkswagen, United Airlines, International Herald Tribune, Monocle, Newsweek, Wired UK and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Topic: Non-Profit Doesn't Mean Boring or Free
Morgan is helping the Dropbox team design ways to make your life easier. Before joining Dropbox, he led the visual redesign of Google+ that launched in April 2012. As part of the non-profits Participatory Culture and Politics Foundations, Morgan designed open tools to change and affect society for the better.
Native Texan Ben Jenkins founded OneFastBuffalo in 1998 after completing his MFA in Art & Technology at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied new media arts & technology, design, film, philosophy, and current social issues of the American Indian. While attending SAIC he spent time making his thesis film on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. This period of time really screwed up his trust of conventional wisdom and thus the seed idea for Onefastbuffalo was born.
Ben studied graphic design and architecture as an undergraduate at Mississippi State University while playing baseball for the Southeastern Conference school. After college, Ben spent time as a Minor League baseball player for the Philadelphia Phillies. This is where he started doing freelance design projects to pass the time while sitting in motels and riding in buses. "I love playing ball but I don't like watching soap operas, over sleeping, eating at 711, and playing poker 24/7. I did like the long bus rides from town-to-town though. I had long stretches of time to think on things, sketch ideas, and read. I also saw lots of interesting terrain." To this day, that sense of nomadism and learning remains as the core creative philosophy of the company. "I believe that creative people do not just "have" ideas. I believe we are just better equipped to see and find them. But we need to see new things, to have new ideas. So as a company, that is what we do. We get out and experience the world, bring it back to the studio, and then make something new out of it." Read about his 1958 Airstream Mobile Office.
Ben has a passion for solving branding problems with design, strategy, and technology. Received no previous agency experience before founding OFB, Ben has 15 + years experience working with organizations large and small and has no intention of ending his daily pursuit to progress as a designer. "Making things is what I like to do. Simple as that. I'm not cut out for much else from an employment standpoint. I'd just sit there and re-arrange everything in the place." He likes to think he would have won lots of awards in Print magazine and stuff like that but never saw the point in paying money to have your work shown to all the other designers. "I figure if my clients are happy, and I dig the work, I did a good job. Next."
OneFastBuffalo is a full time endeavor for Ben, but he also gives lectures and talks to universities and various organizations who will have him out. Beyond working with clients via OFB, Ben has also started other successful brands of his own including: Warstic Bat Co, Treadsmith Board Co, Workhaus Lodge, and INDIG.
Ben was selected as the 2009 MSU College of Architecture, Art & Design Alumnus of the Year. Ben is married to a kick-arse gal named Jenn whom he met when he was 12. They have 3 sons, Shane, Shepard and Shaw. He enjoys collecting boots, playing guitars and banjo, camping, surfing/sking/snowboarding, cooking, drawing & painting, leather-working, all kinds of working out, and playing baseball. He coaches the Warstic Buffaloes Little League Baseball teams and enjoys Airstream trips with his family…draggin them pretty much all around the Northern hemisphere looking for cool junk and hittin every pawn shop from here to Barstow and generally enjoying some slow clean living.
Topic: What a Wonderful World
Cameron Moll is the founder of Authentic Jobs, a targeted job board for web and creative professionals. He's the co-author of the best-selling CSS Mastery (2006, 2009) and author of Mobile Web Design (2007), a self-published title.
Cameron's work or advice has been featured by HOW, Communication Arts, PRINT, Forrester Research, National Public Radio (NPR), and many others. One of his letterpress type posters, the most recent of which can be seen at ColosseoType.com, was the recipient of the HOW 2008 In-House Design Award.
Cameron resides in Sarasota, Florida, with his wife Suzanne and four sons.
Topic: Momentous Design
Chances are that you know the Carlos Whittaker story. You know about his time at Andy Stanley’s North Point community church, about that tattoo, that viral video and the People’s Choice Award. You know all about that blog which comes in just behind Piper and Driscoll in the top five charts and you’ll know about the debut album with Integrity Music. We’re guessing you’ll also know about the fact that for Carlos Whittaker, the prospect of a world without social media is, frankly, terrifying.
But that is neither the whole story or the bigger picture. And when it comes to the words and sounds of Carlos Whittaker, the whole story and bigger picture matter a lot.
In a journey that has taken him from the west coast to the deep south, Carlos has become something unique within the church. His favorite phrase is his calling card – to disturb and disrupt to see Christ’s face fresh again – and his voice sounds loud and clear.
“Perhaps my voice before was a little more cautious,” he explains. “But now that I’m not working in a church I can be more…” [pause] “…aggressive? I mean that I am better able to question the evangelical community. These days I can say the things that will get me into trouble and lose readers and commenters, but these are the things that matter – these are the things that are true.”
All of which is why we’re five paragraphs in to this micro-bio and we’re only just getting round to exploring the new music coming from Carlos Whittaker.
“I’ve been on 20mg Paxil for the last nine years. I used to have panic attacks so strong that I was unable to stand up. So my songs come from a life that has had to practice total dependence on God. Maybe the brokenness levels are higher than in others, but I’m tired of the fear. I’m tired of getting emails every day from people saying ‘you said what I wanted to say’… So my songs have an agenda, like a sheepdog let loose in the field.”
Carlos is married to his wife Heather and they have 3 children. In November 2006 Carlos and his wife Heather adopted their son Losiah from Seoul Korea.
The after party will be located at La Buena Vida. Dinner & drinks will be provided.
Enjoy some coffee as you connect with other awesome peeps just like you.
Topic: We Are The Fifty Percent: Hope For The Average Designer
Patrick Mahoney has been using his imagination since childhood in hopes of making a living doing it. Through a lot of failures and some successes God opened doorways in spite of him. He and his wife have been serving at Mars Hill Church for over a decade and he's been the Associate Art Director and Mars Hill for a number of years. He now lives in the northwest with his wife and kids where there's endless play with home improvement, lego's and calico critters.
Topic: It's Not All Business
Megan began working as a business owner and designer straight out of college in 2009 beginning Hitch Design Studio with her husband, Mike in Traverse City, Michigan. Together they develop interactive websites, brand stories, and consult for creative businesses wanting to make a difference. Megan leads all consultation on the visual design and marketing strategy for their clients. She believes in the power of collaboration, story-telling, and the use of raw elements in design.
When not designing Megan is the editor and curator behind the design and lifestyle blog, The Fresh Exchange where she shares current inspiration, recipes, and personal thoughts on her life as a creative entrepreneur. Daily she uses the space as a creative outlet through using original images and hand done typography.
Outside of the office Megan and her husband spend long hours hiking and enjoying Northern Michigan.
Topic: Leadership: Your Creative Block
Terry Storch serves as the Digerati Pastor for LifeChurch.tv. Meeting in multiple locations around the United States, and globally at Church Online, LifeChurch.tv is known for the innovative use of technology to spread the Gospel.
Three dynamic areas of digital ministry reside under Terry’s leadership at LifeChurch.tv. They are known as YouVersion, Church Online, and the Church to Church resource teams. As co- founder of the YouVersion Bible App, which has currently been downloaded on more than 72 million devices, Terry enjoys seeing people around the world fall in love with God’s Word. Church Online allows hundreds of thousands people from more than 200 countries to attend church services online throughout the week. Additionally, the Church to Church ministry is resourcing thousands of pastors and churches with free resources such as sermon notes, curriculum, and worship materials through OPEN.lifechurch.tv. They also offer free web apps, such as the Church Online Platform and Church Metrics, which are tools created to assist churches in hosting their own church services online and to help churches manage attendance and giving trends.
Prior to joining the LifeChurch.tv team in 2007, Terry formed two technology companies, consulted with various large telecommunication start-ups, and has spent the last 15 years serving and leading in ministry. During this time, Terry co-authored The Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of Your Church Through Blogs.
Topic: Capture and Convey
A designer, illustrator, speaker and creative tinkerer living in Charlotte, North Carolina that believes you have to find ways to do work that you love, even if it means creating it for yourself. His MAX100 project grew from self-initiated web adventure, to Kickstarter project, to a published book sitting on coffee tables and in sneaker shops in over 25 countries.
He has created design and illustration for clients such as the NBA, Facebook, Nike, New York Magazine / Vulture, JJ's Red Hots, Wired Magazine, TBWA/London, The Salvation Army, The Designer Fund, and Dunkin Donuts. For clients big and small, he strives to create work that is effective, thoughtful and reflects a unique point of view.
Topic: Building A Brand: How Details Make the Difference
Jeff Sheldon is the founder and designer of Ugmonk, a brand focused on creating high-quality, well-designed products. What started as a small side project to create simple, typographic tshirts has grown into a full-blown lifestyle brand which he now runs full-time. When he's not designing, Jeff enjoys hanging out with his wife and crazy boston terrier, Pixel.
Topic: The Heart of Design: Perception, Peers, Purpose
Gerren Lamson is a multi-discipline designer, illustrator, and type designer living in Austin, Texas. He is the chief creative officer and lead product designer of Creative Market — a marketplace where independent creators buy and sell pre-made digital design content. He also contributes to Satchel & Sage — an online shop of printed goods & textiles that he co-founded and runs with his wife Morgana.
Over the years, Gerren has produced award-winning work for national brands and local clients, and has a penchant for working on projects in the food, beverage, music, design and non-profit spaces. He has practiced design across many disciplines (i.e. identity, web, print, environment, signage, illustration, etc.), and is particularly fond of fine art print-making techniques and drawing as a preferred method of design thinking. He enjoys exploring new ideas through an endless queue of personal projects — all of which combine experimentation, curiosity, contemplation and play.
Gerren is passionate about supporting his peers and giving back to the design community through education and product design. He believes that doing meaningful design work that creates compassion and purpose are pre-requisites for great design. Also, he often wonders who would win in a battle between the U.S.S. Enterprise and an Imperial Star Destroyer — because he is a huge nerd.
Thank you so much for attending Circles. Until next time.
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We totally get it. Come and reignite your passion and imagination at Circles Conference. Circles is a two-day gathering of creatives from around the world. Learn from world-changing thinkers and innovators in both the non-profit and creative community. Mingle with others who share the same passions you do! Topics will encompass passion, creativity, processes and journeys. So if you are looking for the typical HOW-TO session, this is definitely not the place.
