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Global Design Forum is a curated thought leadership programme, celebrating design and the minds shaping its future.
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Global Design Forum
As part of the London Design Biennale programme, from 10 - 12 June 2025 the Global Design Forum will host a series of talks and panel discussions at King's College London, under the title ‘Design and the Invisible’.
How can we dismantle outdated systems and forge radical new ones? Join Samuel Ross, Mariana Mazzucato, Kengo Kuma and dozens more of the world’s most exciting designers and thinkers for a series of talks that will rethink the hidden powers shaping our world.
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Beneath every object, building and space lies an entangled network of invisible forces – financial flows, digital networks, contested borders and unspoken cultural codes that shape lives and govern the world.
Inspired by artistic director Samuel Ross’ Biennale theme, Surface Reflections, we pull back the curtain on these unseen drivers of design. Over three days, leading designers, architects, economists, activists and technologists will shine a light on the impulses that come from within us, those that lie outside us and those that connect us, and envisage a future where design’s transformative power is freed from invisible constraints.
This edition is supported by our Digital Media Partner, STIR.
DESIGN AND THE INVISIBLE
10 June | DAY 1: OUTER FORCES
Design under external pressure. Vanishing resources, hardening borders, societies fractured by conflict and inequality – designers today operate against a backdrop of extraordinary external pressure. We confront these seemingly immovable forces, platforming innovators who are not just pushing the limits, but scaling and redefining them.
11 June | DAY 2: POWER LINES
Rewiring connective networks. The complex web of infrastructure governs the flow of money, materials, products and people across the world. How can we harness these physical and abstract systems – rewire data flows, rethink labour practices, redesign financial rules and rebuild trust – to better serve our needs?
12 June | DAY 3: INNER SELVES
Unleashing inner impulses. Design is a mirror for our deepest passions, values and instincts – reflecting our identities, cultures and communal ties. We make the intangible tangible – from cultural myth-making to the soul of craft – interrogating how creative minds translate our inner worlds into tangible forms.
GDF returns to London Design Festival in September 2025. The last edition took place at the V&A from 14 – 19 September 2024.
The programme for 2024 focussed on some of the most pressing and crucial challenges that designers currently face. Daily themes included Please Design Responsibly; The Healthy City; Resilience and Repair and More than Human.
Over 60 speakers from across the global design and creative community shared new perspectives on how design can be more accessible, inclusive and sustainable and at the forefront of change.
The talks took place in partnership with Johnnie Walker Blue Label, VELUX and Türkiye Design Council.
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London Design Festival
13–21 September 2025
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