Our 2024 world tour recap + what's next
Thank you all for such an epic 2024. We hosted 37 in-person events in 10 different countries and 4 continents. Here are our big recap of all of our events and our group photos. It’s a very long email, and we’ve exceeded our email length limit (so you may need to open this on a new page).
In our next newsletter, we’ll share some epic projects and events we’ve been cooking up for you (also, yes I’m writing in first person, and I’ve been running our newsletter (me, Grace Ling, founder of Design Buddies)
Jan 6 New Years Resolutions Coffee, San Francisco
Our first event of the year! Justin and I were originally trying to host a hike but it was raining hard AF so we made it a coffee meetup at Capital One cafe instead!
Jan 10 AI for designers, San Francisco (Building your personal brand) at AI User Conference
I gave a talk at this conference and many long time Design Buddies members came! The room was so full and many people couldn’t get in.
Jan 18 Founders and Investors meetup, San Francisco
Hosted a fun gathering with my buddies Benjamin and Oliver. We took over the entire cafe basement and it was pretty lit
Jan 28 UX meet up in Mountain View
We gathered a fun group of UX designers and researchers and also did some user testing of a tool Leon and I worked on - UXProAI, a “Leetcode for UX interviews” tool before we pivoted and then pivoted again.
Feb 21 AI in design meetup with Gen AI collective, Ansh, and Dovetail in San Francisco
We hosted our first event with GenAI Collective and Ansh Mehra, my friend who is a legendary design youtuber, who also flew in from India. Shoutout to Dovetail for sponsoring.
Feb 27 AI in product meetup with Gen AI collective, Ansh, and Dovetail in San Francisco
We did another meetup with the buddies! This time focused on practical AI applications in product.
Mar 1 Hop into new friendships at Spice King
I literally moved into my longer term housing in San Francisco the morning of this day. It was storming but we still had a wonderful time at my friend Jimmy (Spice King)’s house! The power even went out.
Jimmy hosts awesome parties and inspires me to decorate my house to host parties in, too. Which lead to Bunny House being born.
Mar 12 Creatives meetup at IDEO, San Francisco
We also hosted a design challenge with Glyf and hosted our first event at IDEO!
Mar 14 Pi Day, Bunny Housewarming, San Francisco
2 weeks after moving in, we hosted our first event at Bunny House on Pi Day! It was so great to celebrate our housewarming with our good friends. It inspired me to host many events here!
Mar 21 Gaming and AI at GDC with Freepik
We hosted the first event at Freepik’s US office during the Game Developer’s Conference!
Mar 23 UX Researcher & Product Manager Meetup with Olvy
We had a UX and product meetup at Bunny House with Olvy!
Mar 24 Hike with Catalyst Society
Justin and I hosted another fun hike! This time in the Presidio. We wanted to do a hike earlier this year but it kept raining omg
Mar 28 Designer and researcher meetup at Dovetail
Hosted our first event here at Dovetail, first of many to come :D
Mar 30 Easter at Bunny House, San Francisco
We had soooo much sugar thanks to everyone bringing their colorful easter foods!!
Apr 8 Founders and creatives meetup at Freepik, San Francisco
Ok I literally flew 4 times across the country for some events and business meetings and these were right in between (including Dovetail’s Insight Out conference). Right after an epic Summit at Sea, I went back to SF and hosted this at Freepik (their CEO was in town!)
Apr 9 Community builders and creatives meetup at Bunny House, San Francisco
Since I was back in SF for 4 days before flying back to the East Coast, I hosted a fun gathering with people I want to talk shop with at Bunny House. Also my friend Alec was here for Insight Out and gave an awesome talk about negotiating sponsorships
Apr 15 Atlanta meetup
I was in Atlanta because I spoke at Creative South! Spoke about designing the for creator economy. I decided to also host a meetup since I was here. This was also the first time an organization paid for my flights, hotel, etc to speak at a conference.
Apr 20 I quit my job party at Bunny House, San Francisco
My last day in corporate America was Apr 1 (not April Fool’s Day, wanted my healthcare to extend the rest of the month) and I hosted a party at my house on 4/20 to celebrate it! (no weed tho I actually hate the smell). I invited my parents and they gave a wholesome supportive speech!
Apr 28 Spilling the tea at Bunny House, San Francisco
Hosted a tech tea spilling session with Shuya at Bunny House!
May 20 CONFERENCE! San Francisco & online
This was our first conference, Design The Future! We sold out in-person and had 3500+ people tuning in online. Here’s how our $40,000 USD event went and my process of planning it with my production team at Learners
After, we hosted an after party at Dovetail!
Jun 2 Creators hang out at Bunny House
Fun gathering of content creators at Bunny House!
Jun 10 Designer & Founders meetup with ADPList
Fun gathering co-hosted with the ADPList SF community leads during SF design week at LANS!
Jun 21 Pre-Config Designer meetup with STUDIO
Gathered designers at LANS the Friday before Config!
Jun 24 Get Configgy with it at Bunny House
Hosted a fun meetup with Darshan before Config and most people who attended are flying in around the world for Config!!
Jun 27 Detatch Instance - Config After Party
The most epic config after party! I hosted this with my buddies Tommy, Jesse, and Matt!
Jul 19 Istanbul meetup
Our first meetup in Europe! Shoutout to Atakan from Design Buddies for helping us put this together! We were vibing around Europe then and ended up in Istanbul again. It’s a beautiful city.
Man I was so burnt out after hosting 25 events the first half of 2024 that I took a month of vacation in Europe before jetting off again in September lol.
Aug 22 Vancouver meetup
Our first Canada meetup! I was here to speak at the UX x UX conference. It was originally for conference attendees only before they made it for all of Design Buddies the day of so it could have been much bigger bc there are so many buddies here!!
Aug 28 Epic Launch Party (Design Buddies & UXGO) + my birthday
Celebrated my birthday with my team in Seattle! We hosted an epic launch party with our Design Buddies and UXGO merger. So many buddies in Seattle and I will be back!!
Sep 10 Succeeding as a designer at a startup + Design meetup in San Francisco
Akhil talked shop about being a designer at a startup! One last event of the year in San Francisco before my epic world tour.
Sep 19 Designers x founders in Seoul!!
I began my 4 month world tour in Korea!! Had a wonderful time hosting this event with my friend Hannah with Design Buddies and EO!
Sep 26 Designers x founders in Singapore!!
Our second meetup in Singapore! Had a wonderful time hosting with Natalie, QJ, and Toby from Singapore Product Design~
Oct 4 Tropical party at Bunny Villa, Bali
We hosted our first house party in our content creator villa, Bunny Villa! Half the people here also quit their corporate jobs this year
Oct 26 Kawaii Halloween party at Bunny Villa, Bali
Had an epic kawaii Halloween party at Bunny Villa in collaboration with Edward from Jakarta and the UX Bali community! Many friendly locals and digital nomads came and it was so fun~
Nov 20 Design holiday party in Bangkok
Thank you to the ~300 of you for coming to our holiday party in Bangkok, Thailand! I'm grateful for Kati, Pizza, Parin, and Zim for organizing this with me. Also LINE MAN wongnai, Design Buddies , Lottiefiles and ADPList for sponsoring. Also Kamila, Ruby, Chusek, Apirak, and Chanon for speaking!
Dec 10 Designer and founders meetup in Lisbon
Hosted an event with Maddie and Bruno, both long time members of Design Buddies! Also along with the Friends of Figma Portugal and the Ladies that UX Lisbon community
Jan 6 Designers and founders meetup in Buenos Aires
Hosted our first meetup in South America along with my buddies, Sarah and Ivone from Design Buddies! Motivated me to learn Spanish to talk to all of Latin America!
Jan 11 Design meetup in Banglore, India
Shoutout to Manvi from Design Buddies for hosting this with Shwetabh and the design community here! We have so many buddies in India and one day I shall visit!
and that concludes our epic 2024 world tour spanning 4 continents and 10 countries!!
We’re cooking up many fun things in 2025, including more programs for early career designers and startup founders 👀 Also leveling up our content game with more short form content and educational blogs.
Check out our UX design project cohorts! We match students and startups to work on projects to gain experience. If you’re looking for your first job in design and want more cross-functional work experience and a portfolio project, you’re welcome to apply to join our next cohort (mid Feb, added one more bc we keep filling up): https://www.ux-go.com/uxgo-2025/10-week-internship-course
More events in San Francisco! I’m home, locked in, ready to build. Might go around the world again, stay tuned
Los Angeles, March 2025. We’ll be here in LA for the whole month! Also hosting another content creator co-living house. We have 1 more spot left, here is more info + interest form: https://earthy-pirate-118.notion.site/Beach-Bunnies-House-185916d1824c8004a154d23f9a5c0c58
Products to help the design job search suck less, for job seekers and hiring managers
Our second in-person conference, Sunday May 4! It’s right before Config. Topic will be about design entrepreneurship
Also got a new podcast (not directly associated with Design Buddies but you might be interested), How Creators Make Money, hosted by Grace Ling and Justin Ngyuen. Our first episode is about the origin story of Design Buddies.
Stay tuned for some more fun content, my team and I will go outside of our comfort zone to create the BEST community and the BEST design educational content for you! Excited to jam with you all soon!
🐰 About Design Buddies/UXGO
Design Buddies/UXGO is a community where you level up your design career. Land jobs, improve your design skills, and make friends. We have resources, events, design challenges, job boards, fun perks, and more.
👋 Visit our website , hop into our community , and subscribe to our newsletter!
💡 Join our next 10-week design project cohort (next one kicking off mid Feb 2025)
🙌🏻 Partner with us (events, content, sponsorship, and more), email Grace Ling grace@designbuddies.community
🌟 Watch our past events and connect with us on Instagram , Twitter , and LinkedIn for more fun!