Why we're looking forward to Birmingham Design Festival 2025

There's nothing better than a good design festival to help you feel inspired and motivated, and right now it's design festival season. One festival that may not be on your radar is Birmingham Design Festival, which is now in its seventh year, and this year has a theme of Play.

The festival takes place 12-13 June and takes place at Birmingham City University on Thursday 12 and Birmingham Town Hall on Friday 13.

The first day consists of workshops run by a roster of top creatives, including chairwoman of TypoCircle Lou Sloper, designer and artist Gemma O'Brien and graphic designer Chris Ashworth.

The second day sees a fantastic list of speakers including graphic designer and paper engineer Kelli Anderson, the founders of creative agency TEMPLO, illustrator Malika Favre and Chris Clarke, editorial creative director at The Guardian.

The speakers have been chosen specifically for the influential, inspiring and playful nature of their work and will all speak on the conference's 2025 theme, play.

“We’re proud to be back for our seventh year of BDF and for the return of the BDF Conference," says Birmingham Design Festival directors Luke Tonge and Daniel Alcorn. "All of our speakers and workshop hosts are people who we’ve long admired from across the design industry and we can’t wait for them to join us in Brum in June."

Creative Bloq will be at the festival reporting on all of the action. There are still tickets available for various workshops as well as the conference on the Friday, so grab yourself one and we'll see you there!

Find out more about Birmingham Design Festival and book tickets.