Branding, Design & Creativity Speaker and Workshop Facilitator Nela Dunato

Practical branding insights for entrepreneurs and creatives

Nela has been teaching in different ways for over a decade: from one-on-one mentoring, small intense classes and workshops, to talks on leading industry conferences. Nela’s talks and workshops inspire participants and provide clear steps to creating a powerful brand, while staying true to yourself and enjoying your work.

She was selected the Best Speaker by the audience of the Croatian WordCamp conference for two years in a row, rated the Best Teacher of the leading Croatian public open university Algebra, and her workshops and classes consistently get excellent ratings and reviews.

Nela Dunato speaking at WordCamp Split 2016

Photo by Neuralab

Complex topics explained in a simple, accessible and organized way.

The main mission of Nela’s talks and workshops is to get people to implement new information and skills as soon as they get home and get results. Explaining concepts is one thing, but bringing it down to where people can use it on their own is something different.

The way to get around is to provide clear action steps, and Nela’s talks are full of them. Whether it’s a 40-minute keynote talk, or a full-day workshop where we can dive deep into a topic, the audience will leave not only inspired, but with an action plan, as well.

No fluff, pure value.

Past Event & Partner Highlights

Science and Technology Park Rijeka WebCamp Zagreb WordCamp London WordCamp Europe Founder Institute ACE! Conference Krakow Digital Olympus WordCamp Zagreb Lean In Circle Osijek Rijeka City Library Career Booster Rijeka

What the audience & event organizers say…

> <

  • “Working with Nela Dunato was a real pleasure! She taught Branding and Commercialisation in Tourism workshops for STEP RI within the ATLAS project (financed by Interreg V A Italy Croatia Cross-border Cooperation Programme 2014-2020). The workshop implementation was impeccable and the working materials Nela created were super useful (and with great design of course). Participants gave her straight A’s!”

    Anita Pribanic, STEP RI workshop organizer

  • “Nela gave a lecture on branding at the Business Corner of the Rijeka City Library, which was extremely well received, and her name instantly became synonymous with quality, professional, and interesting lectures. When we needed a lecturer to talk about the challenges of business startups as part of the Family Business Library Erasmus project, Nela was our first choice and once again justified our trust. Reliable, organized, eloquent, professional, and with all that, capable of conveying her knowledge and experience in an extremely interesting and casual way.”

    Ana Sirola, Rijeka City Library event coordinator

  • “Nela gave a talk and a workshop at WebCamp Zagreb; both were very well received and highly rated by our attendees. Working with Nela was a breeze, she made our life easy by being well-organised and reliable. We hope to have her back soon.”

    Ivan Habunek, WebCamp Zagreb conference organizer

  • “Nela is a true expert in the field of logo design, but also a great lecturer. She prepared lots of high-quality material for the workshop and presented it beautifully. She gave us all a very solid base for further learning about and practicing designing logotypes.”

    Davor Tomic, workshop participant

  • “Another brilliant talk. Beautiful slides and fluent English with great information made this talk really enjoyable.”

    Igor Benic, conference attendee

  • “I’m thrilled with the workshop! I’ve received practical tools and guidelines for the process of working with clients. Now it’s up to me to apply them in my work. I liked the pleasant atmosphere and great expertise, simplicity and accessibility of the speaker.”

    Goranka Herljevic, workshop participant

  • “Nela is an excellent, open and honest educator! The workshop was supported by our own concrete examples, and was very useful for further work.”

    Gordana Tatalovic, workshop participant

  • “In a simple and practical way, Nela offers advice from an expert’s point of view – on flaws that I noticed myself, but I wasn’t sure how to improve them. Time flew by!”

    Klara Franciskovic, workshop participant

  • “A quick theoretical overview of the basics of design is perfectly complemented by the practical part in which Nela “beautifies” the students’ works and at the same time teaches us how to apply it by ourselves in the future. Money well spent!”

    Tea Conc, workshop participant

  • “A very, very good and useful workshop, a complex topic with which you usually don’t know where to start. The teacher nicely broke it down into its component parts and guided us very well with the content. I learned a lot and got plenty of ideas through both theory and practical reviews. I’ll feel more confident when I do something further”

    workshop participant

  • “Focused workshop full of great content. Especially I like the second part which explained the sequence of activities in the relationship between designer and clients. I could directly find myself here by comparing my personal interaction with clients.”

    Martina Lipovac, workshop participant

  • “Great stuff for other designers and clients to learn about each other. Nice presentation and great verbal skills for non-native english speaker.”

    Miro Cosic, conference attendee

  • “Excellent stage manners and behavior. Despite being a non-designer, I caught up a few valuable tips.”

    Ajda Maric, conference attendee

  • “As a designer, I can say you got it to the point. Really good speech. I enjoyed your verbal and presentation skill.”

    Jovo Milanovic, conference attendee

  • “I learned a ton not only about designing a logo, but creating a visual identity in general. I also liked how interactive the workshop was.”

    Matija Marohnic, workshop participant

  • “This workshop was more open and accessible than others. With more formal workshops, I often experience that lecturers can’t answer my questions, or that their answers are not relevant for my situation.”

    David Dubrovic, workshop participant

  • “Nela Dunato spoke about Selfpromotion for Creatives, an excellent lecture that prompted me to go back to blogging after a very long time.”

    Mihaela Marija Perkovic, conference attendee

  • “I really liked the workshop. It gave me essential knowledge on logo design, a very good basis to continue learning further on my own.”

    Marta K., workshop participant

  • “Approachable, expert, full of good advice and practical examples that makes the content easier to understand.”

    Workshop participant, STEP-Ri

  • “Top lecturing skills, expert with the right dose of improvisation and spontaneity.”

    Workshop participant, STEP-Ri

  • “Very practical, depending on the industry, and easily applicable knowledge.”

    Workshop participant, STEP-Ri

Topics Nela just can’t shut up about

Nela’s core topics are Human Centered Branding (the topic of her first book), creative fulfillment, and logo design. She can bring one of her tried & tested talks or workshops to your event, or create a tailored experience for your audience on other related topics including designing an impeccable client experience, digital marketing, productivity for creatives, and personal growth.

Nela is frequently invited to talk about the everyday life of a self-employed creative professional, and offer tips on turning your passions into a sustainable business.

To get a better idea of the range of topics she’s able to discuss, check out her blog.

The Human Centered Brand

Branding advice for corporations and startups doesn’t work for service-oriented businesses such as consultants, freelancers, agencies and artists. Human centered branding excels where corporate and personal branding both fall short: growing a relationship-focused business with an authentic brand that you not only put on during the working hours, but are able to live by 24/7.

Workshop outcome: Workshop attendees will create their own brand strategy that defines a powerful, unique and authentic brand.

Sketchnotes for the book Creativity Keys chapter on Rest and Burnout

10 Keys to Unlocking Creative Blocks

Based on Nela’s upcoming book Creativity Keys, this talk highlights the deepest and most pervasive challenges that creative people experience, and provides solutions (some obvious, some counter-intuitive) to resolving them for good. As a lifelong multi-media creator who has been making a living exclusively using her creative talents for nearly 2 decades, Nela has faced all of these challenges as well, and has distilled her learnings into a clear and visually appealing structure.

Inspiration is great, but what creatives really need is transformation. Discover where your biggest potential for transformation lies and how to move past any obstacle to your creative goals.

Workshop outcome: Audience will identify their own most common creative blocks, and areas that offer the most opportunity for growth. Journaling exercises, peer discussion, and hot-seat coaching are used to identify practical next steps. In-person workshop attendees all receive keepsake inspirational and though-provoking cards.

Logo Design Crash Course

Become a better logo designer – learn how to create symbols that attract attention. Logo design skills open up more revenue opportunities for you, as well as a way to make a lasting impact on the businesses you work with and literally leave a mark.

This workshop is ideal for screen or print designers who want to expand their skills into the field of logo and brand design, as well as design students with a good grasp of design theory.

Workshop outcome: Through the presentation, discussion and hands-on exercises, attendees will integrate the practical knowledge of using symbols, typography, color and composition in creating unique and professional logos.

Nela Dunato speaking at WordCamp Europe 2018

Photo by Ivan Gatic

Book Nela

Nela is available for keynote talks, public workshops, and in-house workshops. She’s also happy to do TV, radio, video or podcast interviews. Her audiences include passion-fueled entrepreneurs, freelancers, designers, creative agencies, non-profits, and students.

Please fill out the form below to get in touch about your upcoming event.

    Expenses covered