Birmingham Design Festival is a celebration of the local, national and international design industry held in Birmingham, UK. BDF returns for 2023 launching their first in-person BDF Conference, a day of talks from design royalty held at the impressive Birmingham Repertory Theatre on Friday 9th June and a day of workshops run by industry professionals Thursday 8th June.
The theme for 2023 is ‘Imagine’ and BDF have invited 8 of the finest designers from around the world to share insights into their creative journey and processes on stage in front of 800 people – the biggest single event we’ve ever put on. They have a stellar line up of speakers including some inspirational women designers, including internationally renowned designer and artist, Gemma O’Brien; design, type and illustration specialist Marta Cerdà Alimbau; award-winning strategist and Global Brand Director at the LEGO Group, Sonal Jhuj; and director of live service game development at Media Molecule, Abbie Heppe.
Leading into the day of talks BDF be hosting a day of workshops at Birmingham City University on Thursday 8th June featuring some of this year’s speakers and a few familiar faces. See what spaces are still available here.
From pictures books to master builders, dreams to artificial intelligence BDF 2023 will be covering multiple disciplines and backgrounds across the two days in a celebration of local, national and international design.
We recently caught up with the women speakers at the event to find out more about their career journeys and what they will be talking about at BDF 2023!
Gemma O’Brien she/her/hers is an internationally renowned designer and artist known for her bold graphics, illustrative lettering and murals. Her work has been commissioned by Apple, Nike, Google, and is held in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Outside her commercial design work, she explores language, nature and the human experience through her art practice.
After a decade working in the field of graphic design, lettering and illustration, Gemma O’Brien became intrigued with the idea that ultra running might hold the secrets of how to enjoy a long life as an artist. Join her at Birmingham Design Conference for her talk ‘What would an Ultra Artist do?’, where she shares the early stories of her career, the hands-on processes behind her largest wall installations and explores what it means to be an ultra artist.
Marta Cerdà Alimbau she/her/hers brings functional beauty and emotion to Design, translating each project into an effective design that is unique. Her main body of work is focused on the boundaries between typography and illustration. While Marta’s style is strongly eclectic, she believes that the separation of these two disciplines into specialized activities is a limitation. Since 2008, she has worked on global projects which call for Art Direction, Design, Illustration and Custom Typography for Arts, Culture and Advertising Clients abroad.
Marta’s BDF talk ‘Type to Image’ explores how the designer blurs the boundaries between typography and illustration. While Cerdà Alimbau’s style is strongly eclectic, she believes that the separation of these two disciplines into specialised activities is a limitation. In Marta Cerdà’s work this different semiotic means of expression don’t occupy distinct territories but are interconnected in many different ways. The talk is going to take us through a gradient of her work, methodologies and processes, that go from formal lettering to full illustration.
Sonal Jhuj is an Effie award-winning strategist from India and has spent a majority of her career with global creative agency – DDB. At DDB her work reversed business declines for some of the biggest brands by understanding what lies at the heart of the brand – something she now considers her superpower.
Having been surrounded by incredible creative talent all her adult life, she can safely say that the average 6 year old far outranks us all. Today, both as a mum and a marketer at The LEGO Group, she’s inspired by the creative potential of children and believes deeply in the cause to make room for it in the world.
Two years ago she packed her many bags and moved from Mumbai to Billund with her family, to become part of a global mission to inspire the world to play. As Director Global Brand Development at The LEGO Group she has a front row seat to the wildly creative world of kids and spends a disproportionate amount of her time thinking about the future of play, culture and role of brands in shaping a world that helps kids thrive.
Sonal has chosen to title her talk: ‘Play on the Grass – the Power of Play, what we can learn from children’, because as a grown up, mum, working professional she’s realized that what the 39 year old Sonal needs most is to bring back the 6 year old Sonal. It isn’t always easy going, but children have the most wonderful way of inspiring the world.
See some of Sonal’s work: Build The Change New York City Installation – About Us – LEGO.com ; (81) Ekow Nimako Uses Black LEGO Bricks to Rebuild the World – YouTube ; LEGO 90th Anniversary | We are all builders – YouTube ; (81) LEGO Designer Stories | International Women’s Day 2022 – YouTube ; (81) LEGO 90th Anniversary AFOL Film – YouTube The Drum | Lego Taps Katy Perry For ‘biggest Ever’ Christmas Campaign
Abbie Heppe previously led live service game development at Media Molecule on Dreams before leaving in March to work on an exciting new unannounced project. She draws on her background in community, brand & production to grow & support dev teams while applying analytics and community learnings to set strategy and priorities for development. Before Mm, she ran community at Respawn Entertainment. She has also been the Sr. Editorial Producer on X-Play at G4TV, and written for a number of outlets in games print media. She is also an Ambassador for the UK Charity, GamesAid.
Abbie’s talk is about Demystifying Game Development & Dreams. Games are not the black box they were when Abbie was growing up, there are now tons of opportunities to learn, create and develop. Dreams is an amazing platform to peel back the curtain on development, Abbie give an overview of the platform, talk about what people create with it, and talk about the joys of community collaboration and UGC.