Design Mingle: Creative Connections Ceangail Chruthaitheacha is a six-part networking and speaker series led by CREW (Creative Enterprise West), designed to strengthen Galway’s creative community through connection, knowledge-sharing, and public engagement.
Building on the success of previous Design Mingle events, developed as a partnership between CREW and LEO Galway, running from May 2024-Dec 2025, this expanded programme will bring together creative practitioners, industry professionals, students, and the wider public for a series of monthly events (May–October 2026). Each event will feature a guest speaker working at the intersection of creativity and key societal themes, including cultural rights, health and wellbeing, community building, and climate action.
Design Mingle: Creative Connections is funded by Galway City Council through its Creative Communities Fund, an initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme.
Brand Strategist & Storyteller, PointZero
For the next Design Mingle Series: Creative Connections, we welcome Keith Lawler, a creative director and sonic branding specialist who helps make brands memorable through distinctive sound and advertising.
Across an 18-year international career, Keith has worked with agencies including VML, Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA Worldwide, creating work for brands such as Heineken, Google, Vodafone, Adidas, An Post, PlayStation, Nissan and The National Lottery.
Today, he runs two independent creative businesses. LAUDHAUS is a specialist sonic branding studio, using strategy, music and sound to build distinctive audio identities for brands. Keith Lawler & Co works across advertising, brand and culture, bringing together bespoke creative teams around each project.
His work has been recognised at Cannes Lions, the New York Clios, D&AD, Eurobest, the Effies, International Sound Awards and the Transform Awards, alongside more than 24 ICAD Awards and six Sharks.
A former touring musician as well as a creative director, Keith’s work sits naturally between music, ideas and commercial creativity.
Friday, September 4th 2026, 11:30am – 1:30pm at CREW’s Creative Enterprise & Innovation Hub in Galway.
Upcoming Design Mingle Dates
Design Mingle is hosted monthly, with new speakers announced each month.
Please follow along on our social media accounts and website for new speakers.
Upcoming dates:
Friday September 4
Friday September 25
Friday October 16
Friday November 13
Founder & CEO, Ireland Exclusive
Ireland Exclusive is a premium, design-led lifestyle brand celebrating Irish heritage, craftmanship and storytelling. Drawing on 20 years of experience in finance, she combines commercial expertise with a passion for Ireland’s culture to curate meaningful gifting and experiences that strengthen connection to place and tradition.
Friday, June 19th 2026, at CREW’s Creative Enterprise & Innovation Hub in Galway.
Brand Strategist & Storyteller, PointZero
Karen Pappin, expert brand strategist and storyteller, led CREW’s Design Mingle in July, exploring the stories behind brands, creative careers and the journeys that shape them.
Karen Pappin is the founder of PointZero, a brand strategy and visual storytelling studio based in Kinvara, Co. Galway. Her belief is a simple one: every business already has the story it needs. Most are just too close to it, or too busy running things, to tell it well. That is where she comes in.
She has spent 26 years in the creative industries, working across graphic design, branding, print production and visual communications for everyone from sole traders to national brands, including 13 years with Brown Thomas, building and evolving the brand behind the shop floor. She began her career in design and print, trading for years as Kaz Productions, before rebranding her practice as PointZero in 2020, a deliberate return to first principles that gave the studio its name. She holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Design Practice from TUS (LSAD)
Friday, July 24th 2026, 11:30am – 1:30pm at CREW’s Creative Enterprise & Innovation Hub in Galway.
