Embracing the Blank Space: The 2024 Design Summit

As any creative knows, sometimes the most magic can be found in the blank spaces—the moments when you're staring at a blank screen with endless possibilities ahead of you.

Every designer dreams of having the opportunity to fill this space with exactly what they believe a customer wants and a business needs. But for many of us, the thing we most desire is also the thing we fear the most. While it is a designer’s wish and superpower to imagine the future, many of us are equally terrified of it.

Starting from a blank screen is both scary and inspiring; the trick is finding the courage to dive in.

Out of this fear, the theme for our 2024 Dropbox Design Summit was born: Blank Space. Over the past two years we’ve focused on enhancing our craft as designers - getting back to the core principles that make great products. Our mission to design an enlightened way of working inspires us to design with our customers’ needs at the forefront. We’re building products that allow our customers to focus less on busywork, and more on making and doing.

Embracing this concept of Blank Space allowed us to zoom out of the tactical, confront our fears and transform them into a source of inspiration and creativity that we can pull from every day.

At Dropbox, blank spaces provide new opportunities. When we were determining how our future working model would take shape during the pandemic, design was at the center of the conversation. Spending several months working remotely allowed us to ask the meaningful questions—what opportunity do we have here, and what can be built from this? How can we reinvent work? How can we use this blank space and start fresh? From there, Virtual First was born. Being a Virtual First company means we work primarily remotely, but in-person connection is still a crucial element to how we work. There is no replacement for true human connection. Therefore, we aren’t completely remote, but we aren’t hybrid either. When the world of work was changing, we saw that blank space as an opportunity to intentionally create our own path with Virtual First. This intentionality of how we work is inherently reflected in how we create for our customers.

As we continue on our journey in this modern way of working, we’re focusing on the impact of our gatherings more than ever before. We know coming together boosts our creativity, innovation, and overall sense of belonging; and as designers, we feed off the creative energy of others.

Our annual Design Summit is a key moment where we bring our entire team together for a meaningful moment of culture building and collaboration. And throughout the rest of the year, we also gather with other cross-functional partners in different capacities to fuel our collaboration needs. For this year’s Design Summit, we centered ourselves around craft, quality, and creativity. Every detail of the Design Summit was highly curated, from carefully selecting a location that resonates with the spirit of the event, to creating a thoughtful branding experience, we wanted to amplify the blank space and fill it with something intentional and beautiful.

The Blank Space theme was evoked in a variety of creative ways, including inspiring messaging, the use of mirrors, strategic shadows, and plenty of empty, open space throughout. The use of materials was extremely deliberate, and we kept the palette simple and ephemeral.

For example, the badge display for employees featured reflective acrylic badges hanging by chain lanyards from a umbrella-like structure, which was made to cast Dropbox’s logo as a shadow. The use of reflective material emphasized the idea of open spaces. Additionally, for our programming sessions, we paired minimalist seating and furniture with a stage backdrop made from layered voile, a sheer mesh material.

One of the marquee messages found throughout the Design Summit included, "Thoughts Become Things.” Ultimately, designers are makers. It’s our superpower. We have the ability to come together, take our ideas, and turn them into something that people use and love.

Our goal of the Design Summit was to inspire our teams in a variety of ways, and offer different perspectives that encourage us to think outside of the box.

With that in mind, we welcomed a lineup of inspiring speakers who embody the meaning of being masters of their craft. Bestselling author Austin Kleon led a session on "Stealing Like an Artist," exploring creativity in the modern day. Carolyn Gregoire, a renowned researcher, guided us through understanding our creative archetypes and how to best leverage our individual skills. Lastly, local Palm Springs artist, Tysen Knight shared insights into his artistic journey and creative process.

Energized by what we learned together, our team is fully embracing this theme of Blank Space. We’re continually reinforcing the message in our everyday work, encouraging our teams to embrace the creative process and think of different ways to approach our work. This refreshed outlook is supported by three concepts we’re incorporating into our Design org ethos, embracing the Blank Space:

• Be Bold. This can mean many different things for our designers, but universally, it means operating with high agency to push boundaries, be curious and trust your instincts.

• Focus on Foundations and Master the Basics. Operating in this way allows us to ask the right questions to deliver the right products—who are we designing for and what do they really need? The ability to change the direction of our work opportunistically is a form of control that is completely different from the attempt to control the circumstances by clinging to a plan.

• Tinkering and Making. At our core, we are all makers. Whether that's a feature, a customer insight, a campaign, or a framework for tackling our operations as a team, our goal is to create.

Facing the blank space with bravery isn’t easy, but it’s entirely achievable. And embracing blank spaces with courage not only propels our individual growth, but strengthens the bonds that unite us as a team, and allows for serious impact at every level.