Design Plus X: Ten Years of Questioning What's Next

The tenth edition of the International Creative Congress Design Plus took place on 18 June 2026 at Ogrody Śródmieście, Szczecin, Poland bringing together designers, game creators, and thinkers to mark a milestone anniversary with a fittingly open-ended theme: Design Plus X.

The “X” was deliberate. As the organizers framed it, this year’s congress sat at the intersection of what the design community has already achieved and what remains unknown – a symbol for everything still to be discovered and shown in the years ahead. True to that spirit, the day’s program ranged across a wide mix of subjects, from design philosophy to the future of gaming, reflecting a decade of the congress evolving alongside the industries it serves.

The event was co-financed by the REAVES project platform. The platform aims to consolidate 22 projects’ outcomes focusing on building resilient ecosystems in the game, music and film sector.

The sLOW Alternative to “McDonaldized” Design

Among the day’s key voices was Dr. Marcin Makaj, a doctor of arts and holder of degrees in law and economics, who heads the Interfaculty Department of Computer Games and Virtual Reality at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. His talk examined what he calls the “McDonaldization” of design  the growing pull toward solutions that are predictable, fast, and easy to replicate.

Against that current, Dr. Makaj proposed an alternative rooted in the sLOW philosophy: an approach that asks designers to build work grounded in personal values, lived experience, and an authentic creative process, rather than speed and repeatability alone.

Dr. Makaj brings an unusually broad résumé to the subject. An award-winning computer game creator, his projects have been exhibited in Los Angeles, Toronto, Cape Town, Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne, Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo. He has served as a juror for international industry competitions, spoken at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, sat on the program board of the Game Industry Conference, and acted as an expert to the European Commission on computer games. The evening’s atmosphere was rounded out by a live performance from the German band Duxius.

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