GDEN in Birmingham, Friday 11 September 2026

Please join us to meet, share, and discuss current issues and ideas about teaching Graphic Design in Higher Education on Friday 11 September 2026.

This year we are being kindly hosted by the Graphic Design Deptartment at Birmingham City University.

Tickets are £30 each and include a 'Brummie lunch'. There is a 50% discount for Hourly Paid Lecturers, recent graduates or students (please use code 'HPL' at checkout).

For further requests for support or any other questions please email Graphic Design Educators' Network [email protected]

---------------------------------------

Schedule:

11am–11:30
Registration and refreshments

11:30–12:30
Theo Inglis
Theo Inglis is a Graphic Design Lecturer at Birmingham City University, and a freelance graphic designer, design writer & author.

Theo designs and writes about publications and other typographically driven printed matter. He is the author of The Graphic Design Bible (2023), and Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design (2019).

theoinglis.co.uk

12:30–13:30
Urjuan Toosy & Zarna Hart, An Archive is a School
Urjuan Toosy and Zarna Hart are graphic designers and design educators whose work focuses on postcolonial archival practices and collaborative knowledge production. Their talk will reflect on the first iteration of An Archive is a School, a public-facing exchange that connects global majority design students with cultural institutions, creating opportunities to challenge and reshape archives and design collections.

@anarchiveisaschool
anarchiveisaschool.cargo.site

13:30–14:30
Brummie Lunch

14:30–15:45
Sean Yendrys, School Notes: On the MA in Graphic Design at EKA

Sean Yendrys is a graphic designer and educator, and has been Head of the MA Graphic Design programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, since its opening in 2020. Over the last six years the program has had the unintentional habit of changing its structure, focus, process and student-workload from year to year. In this talk, Sean will reflect on the MA’s continuous development and approach.

16:00–16:15
End of day discussion

16:30–onwards
Social at The Woodman, 1 Curzon St, B4 7XG

---------------------------------------

The Graphic Design Educators’ Network (GDEN) was initiated in 2014 with the purpose of advancing design research and facilitating peer sharing for Graphic Design education practitioners working in UK Higher Education.

Graphic Design remains an under-theorised subject within an increasingly unstable institutional climate. We aim to create space to re-model – and question – what graphic design pedagogy might be. Through meet-ups, events, talks and conferences, we are interested in responding to the social, cultural, political, and ecological conditions impacting design-based teaching and learning environments.

GDEN is also a network of social support, in-between (and beyond) institutions, to facilitate openness, connection and conversation. We aim to be responsive to our collective experiences, in order to advocate for best practice: in our subject and for our – and students’ – wellbeing.