Birmingham Design Festival sparks creativity with 'Imagine' as its central theme

AnnouncementBy Thomas Dahm •Friday, 12 May 2023

This June Birmingham Design Festival [BDF] returns for its 6th edition! Celebrating design and creativity in a new festival setup. This year's theme: Imagine, guarantees to inspire and engage attendees with new ideas and perspectives.

Founded in 2018 by Luke Tonge and Dan Alcorn, BDF has become a regular global design event calendar feature. This year Birmingham Design Festival will once again present an eclectic program around four ‘design districts’ – Graphic, Digital, Product, and Illustration, with a beautiful mix of speakers and workshop hosts.

In our recent interview, Festival coordinator and co-founder, Luke Tonge said, "This year we are doing something a bit different! We have wanted to get to an alternating pattern of the big festival and a more compact conference, so this year we are trialing – a conference-style approach – one day of workshops, followed by one day of talks in a single venue. ... we have effectively squished three evening events into a single day of talks."

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Workshops

The first day of the Birmingham Design Festival is for workshops. Thursday, 8 June, you can participate in eight workshops. From a Brand Masterclass with Brian Collins and Astrid Stavro (🤯) to a Lettering and Calligraphy Workshop with Gemma O’Brien, or attend Anthony Burrill: Print Workshop!

Conference

Friday, 9 June, the chief creative officer of COLLINS Brian Collins, designer and artist Gemma O'Brien, visual artist and author Oliver Jeffers, co-founder & principal designer at COMUZI Lex Fefegha, director of live service at Media Molecule Abbie Heppe, designer and Illustrator Marta Cerdà Alimbau, global brand director at the LEGO Sonal Jhuj, and director and designer puppetry Toby Olié will take the stage at Birmingham Rep theatre and share stories about their imaginations.