Focus on Benefits: DesignThinkers Member rates
Written by Ruth Farrugia RGD, City of Côte Saint-Luc
RGD Membership has its privileges! As co-chair of the Membership Committee, I want to share some of the amazing resources and benefits that Membership provides and encourage all RGD Members to take advantage of them. If you’re not an RGD Member yet, now’s the time to join!
Need to connect with other designers, gain new insights and be inspired by design royalty? DesignThinkers will provide! It is the RGD’s flagship design conference, the largest in Canada, which started in Toronto in 2000 and expanded to Vancouver in 2017.
If you’re a Certified, Associate or Affiliate RGD, you have access to special discounted rates (even on early bird rates) to attend DesignThinkers in-person in Vancouver and Toronto. If you can’t make it in person, you can sign up for streaming access to sessions and network from the comfort of your own home! The Vancouver edition takes place in the spring and the Toronto edition is in the fall.
I discovered the RGD by attending my first DesignThinkers in Toronto in 2013, thanks to a friend who passed the promo flyer on. As the only designer working in an in-house department, I was truly excited to be in a group of other designers again. When I registered for the conference, I was encouraged to become an Affiliate Member to get the registration discount. The Membership was practically a tiny add-on once the discount was factored in…an easy sell to my employer. A few years later, I got my certification and the rest is history!
A DesignThinkers attendee left this glowing review on the post-conference survey:
“How truly inspired I felt leaving this conference surrounded by like-minded creatives, can never be a bad time!! It was an empowering couple of days and as my first Design Thinkers attendance, I think I'm hooked! It's such a great place to connect with others in your network, you may not get to see them often as well! I very much enjoyed my time — thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Anonymous
Seeing and listening to designers of all stripes on-stage, many of whom I’d only ever read about and whose work I’d seen in design magazines and online, was so inspiring. Finding out we all had so many of the same issues, no matter the size of the client, made me feel better. Chatting with other designers reminded me of being in design school. I’ve had the pleasure of hosting and attending roundtable discussions at the conference and have witnessed first-hand the relief and nods of acknowledgement when we all realize we’re not alone.
Even whole design agencies and firms have something to gain. It’s like a field trip for your team! Brent Long RGD, Director of Client Happiness for Fusion Design Group Inc., had this to say about his team’s experience:
“Our team has been lucky enough to enjoy DesignThinkers on both sides of the country. They are VERY different conferences for us. The primary separator is that DTWest is a BIG excursion, coming from Markham, ON and so it acts as more of a team-building event since we’re spending almost a week together, 24/7. It is also a much smaller event compared to DTTO. Without the concurrent sessions of DTTO, it takes the decision-making stress out of the equation and we all get to share our experience of seeing the same presentations. The Vancouver event has a more casual feel, like the West Coast. That’s not to say it is any less educational and inspiring. It’s a big treat for us and we’re excited to say that this is our third time attending (2018, 2024 and now again in 2025). Plus, we’re staying in Canada, supporting Canadians!”
Brenton Long RGD
As an RGD Member, you can also get involved directly in DesignThinkers conferences. You can moderate roundtable discussions and help spread the word at the RGD booth. Moreover, you can join a committee that organizes various elements leading up to the event and helps shape DesignThinkers (and get an extra 20% off your registration!). If you’d like to be on stage inspiring other designers yourself, extra consideration is given to Certified RGD Members in the call for speakers.
Missed a session or want to re-watch? When you’ve registered for DesignThinkers, you get exclusive access to the session recordings for three months before they’re posted for RGD Members in the Video Archive…another amazing benefit!
The connections you make at a DesignThinkers conference can last years. Saving money on registration fees is a great benefit of RGD Membership. Time to take advantage of it and register for Vancouver this spring (May 13-14) or Toronto on October 1-2)!
And hey, fellow in-house folks, you can also get discounts for all of the RGD's other events and conferences, including the RGD In-House Conference in June, either in person in Toronto or via streaming.
Ruth Farrugia RGD
City of Côte Saint-Luc
Ruth uses her creative talents to inform and delight at the City of Côte Saint-Luc (a municipality in the West End of Montreal), where she has worked for over 20 years as their in-house graphic designer with a special passion for print design. Fishtank Communications, her independent studio, focuses on clients within the arts and non-profit sectors. She is co-chair of RGD’s Membership Committee—where she helped to kick-start the Virtual Communities initiative, serves on the RGD Board, and has been a member of the Events Committee and judged student competitions.
