Labs Recommendations: Best Design talks in London

Over the last 3 years in London, I have been to quite a few design talks and I love how every talk has got its own personality in some way. The tricky part is actually getting tickets before they sell out, so I would recommend signing up for the newsletters of the events you think you might like, and to get tickets as soon as they come out.

Here are my favorite talk events:

Nicer Tuesdays

Nicer Tuesdays is a monthly talk organized by It’s Nice That. Normally held on the last Tuesday of every month, it features 4 short and compelling talks by creatives from various industries. So for example, you may hear stories from a graphic designer, an animator, a photographer, a filmmaker all in the same evening. The range of speakers and topics is wide, sometimes featuring specific projects, sometimes aspects of their creative process. It’s a great way to get the perspective of a practitioner whose expertise is different from your own.

The length of the event and talks, and the overall pace is really good. Short and punchy, with a break and a free beer. It used to be held at Protein Studios, it’s now at Oval Space which accommodates for more people and has a pretty nice view!

Design Club

Design Club is a fairly new event. It’s not that frequent, but when they do announce a talk, it usually has some amazing speakers and the tickets go really quick, like, in minutes.What I like about Design Club is that they often feature digital / UX / UI design speakers and topics, which is quite rare.

The Design Club talks I have been to (missed the tickets for the last one, argh!), have all been hosted in different locations, with free drinks and great sponsors like Marvel.

It normally has 2 speakers, with a slightly longer talk format than Nicer Tuesday, which is perfect for going a bit more in-depth into projects and topics, whilst not being toooooo long.

Type Tuesdays

Type Tuesdays is a quarterly event run by Eye Magazine, a leading graphic design journal that’s been around since the early nineties. The talks often have a strong typographic flavour, with speakers of international fame, and are normally introduced by Eye’s editor, John L. Walters.

The ones I have been to were hosted in the gorgeous St Bride Library, which really added to the evening’s atmosphere. St Bride also has traditional presses which have been used for a mini-workshop in one of the latest talk events I attended.

More talks

Here are a few other talks that are worth checking out!

Creative Mornings

Creative Mornings happen on a Friday Morning, 8:30 – 10, so it can be tricky to take an hour or so off work. Different from the previous talks which are solely London based, Creative Mornings has a global community and there’s generally a monthly theme. Events happen all over the world around this topic and speakers are from all sorts of backgrounds.

Glug

Glug also has a global community, with volunteers organizing talks in all major cities. I’ve been to two a long time ago, which were really good – even though one was slightly too packed. It looks like they’ve had lots of utterly amazing speakers recently which I totally missed out on! I subscribed to their newsletter now to make sure I won’t miss the next one!

General Assembly

With all their courses in the GA’s Events page, at times you can find some free UX and Design related talks!

Conclusions

Beyond the regular talks, sometimes you can find the occasional event which might surprise you with a lot of good stuff! As mentioned earlier, I’d recommend subscribing to the newsletters of the ones that most inspire you, and to get tickets to the talks that have interesting speakers. If you find any other good ones, let me know!