This June, Birmingham Design Festival returns in full festival format with the theme of process. There will be over 80 speakers and 100 events across three days and multiple venues from Thursday 6 to Saturday 8 June.
Now in its sixth year, BDF is an important part of the global design calendar, attracting visitors and speakers from around the world to the West Midlands for 60 hours of free talks, workshops, exhibitions and more.
The roster of speakers for 2024 ranges from design legends to people delivering their first talks. The line up includes Jessica Hische, Annie Atkins, Louis Henry Mitchell (Sesame Workshop), PES, Aurelia Durand, Pav Grochola (Sony Pictures Imageworks), Sue Murphy (Coca-Cola) and many more.
The festival programme will again be split into four strands, known as Design Districts: Graphic, Digital, Product and Illustration. In each district, visitors will find 15 free talks related to the district’s focus, plus an assortment of workshops and drop-in sessions. At the end of each day, headline speakers will take to the Giant Screen – an old IMAX cinema.
The festival will open on Wednesday 5 June with ‘Processing…’ – an exhibition celebrating 30 artists work and the process behind it. Presented in partnership with PHORM, the exhibition will offer an insight into each artist, with behind the scenes photography, sketches and ideation documenting the journey to the finished piece on display. The exhibition will remain in place throughout the festival.
Most events are free to attend or priced very accessible. You can catch five free talks per day in each of the District Hubs. Tickets to the headline events cost £15 for students and £25 for adults. There's 20% hotel discount from festival partner Bloc Hotels. Organisers say over half the of 10,000 tickets for the festival are already gone and events are selling out quickly.
BDF Directors, Luke Tonge and Dan Alcorn said: “We’re really excited for this year’s BDF, it was great to try a new format last year with our first in-person conference, but we’re so excited for the return of the full festival. We love to hang out with like-minded people, and be inspired by all the creativity on display, so we can’t wait to welcome more amazing speakers to Brum and to provide an accessible event for the creative community!”
Tickets are available at bdf.events.
