Creative Executives Dinner Series

The Creative Executives Dinner Series is an event series that intentionally steps away from the usual creative conference format. Instead of stage talks about creativity itself, we’ll focus on what usually remains behind the scenes—the business side of design and creativity.

These evenings are about growth, decisions, and real-world experiences: how studios scale, how teams are built, how talent is attracted, how visibility is achieved, and how creative organisations become sustainable businesses. The more intimate format invites you to join the conversation rather than just listen to a presentation.

And the second guest of the series is Thierry Brunfaut, one of Base Design’s founding Partners and serves as Executive Creative Director at Base Brussels.

Thierry Brunfaut trained as a graphic designer, not as a manager. When he co-founded Base Design, he knew how to create brands—but almost nothing about leadership, human resources, or building a healthy creative organisation.

Together with his partners, he made nearly every mistake possible while running a growing international studio. Eventually, they decided to approach Base as they would any other design challenge: by redesigning the company itself.

In this talk, Thierry shares how Base transformed its culture, introduced new processes and rituals, and aligned teams across Brussels, New York, Geneva, and Melbourne—without losing the personal inspiration, spontaneity, and creative energy that made the studio successful in the first place.

An honest and practical look at what it takes to design not only great work, but also the studio behind it.

Thierry is one of Base Design’s founding Partners and serves as Executive Creative Director at Base Brussels. From projects ranging from visual identities to ad campaigns, Thierry imparts a graphic and conceptual simplicity philosophy emphasising concise communication. “Don’t design for designers. Design for people” is one of his mottos. Thierry believes in the power of words in design, creative autonomy, teamwork, and pleasure through ever-changing processes.

Thierry has worked with various cultural institutions such as MoMA, La Monnaie Opera, Mudam, Grand Palais, Fondation Cartier, Fondation Vuitton, Haus der Kunst (Munich), Théâtre du Châtelet, Bozar Brussels, Ruhrtriennale, and The Olympic Museum. He is also the author of the renowned “5-minute poster series”, creating 50 typographic works, each dedicated to a short bit of wisdom on design. Thierry is a professor and a regular speaker at design and branding conferences worldwide. He also bears a striking and seemingly contradictory resemblance to both Moby and Kermit the Frog.