There is a query the organisers of Northern Design Pageant get requested yearly: why Lancaster? The reply, it seems, is the entire level.
Operating from 13–15 Might 2026, NDF returns to Kanteena in Lancaster for its third version – and what started as a grassroots gathering for creatives exterior the capital has quietly grown into probably the most genuinely community-led occasions on the design calendar. No fanfare or posturing… Simply three days of good talks, workshops and conversations from a mixture of creatives throughout the trade.
This 12 months’s theme is Heritage, and the organisers have taken that severely past the programme itself. In collaboration with kind foundry F37, they’ve developed a bespoke typeface known as Lancer – a reputation that carries a deliberate double which means. It nods to Lancaster’s medieval roots whereas referencing the phrase “freelancer”, which traces again to knights who weren’t certain to a single lord. For a competition constructed round unbiased artistic tradition, it is a becoming metaphor.
Lancer attracts on conventional Blackletter varieties however brings a geometrical, up to date development to them… one thing that bridges the previous and the current reasonably than getting too nostalgic. “We needed the typeface to really feel like a love letter to each town and the broader artistic neighborhood,” the NDF administrators clarify. “It displays the place we have come from, but in addition the liberty and independence that outline what number of creatives work at present.”
The identification extends right into a billboard marketing campaign with companion Open Media, showing throughout Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle. And reasonably than selling audio system or ticket gross sales, the marketing campaign focuses on one thing tougher to pin down: the shared expertise of leaving your hometown seeking alternative and what that may imply for reframing your story.
The 2026 speaker lineup is shaping up properly. Confirmed to date: a stay My Life in Design podcast with Claire Blyth of Crimson Setter and Emma Barrett of Wolff Olins; a screen-printing workshop with Dan Mather; a keynote from Bryan Edmondson of SEA; F37 on how calligraphic heritage shapes up to date kind design; Studio Trumpet on breaking the enterprise of design; Baxter & Bailey’s Design Laundry; Sana Iqbal; College of Cumbria; and Kellogg’s on designing the way forward for heritage manufacturers. Extra to be introduced quickly.
What makes NDF tick is much less the names on the invoice and extra the individuals who make all of it occur. Greater than 30 volunteers assist construct the entire thing whereas working full-time jobs.
“From the start, the mission has been easy,” says co-director Antonia Arbova. “We wish to join communities who consider in humanising our trade and guaranteeing that everybody has a good alternative to pursue what they love.”
Co-director Niamh Cartwright provides: “Typically all of us want a reminder that issues can transfer ahead and that we’re not doing it alone.”
We’re proud to be a sponsor of NDF this 12 months, however we’re not simply displaying up with our identify on a pleasant banner. Inventive Growth will collaborate with among the competition’s audio system to create a brand new set of Growth Truths posters, designed within the Lancer typeface. The finer particulars aren’t but confirmed, however we’re enthusiastic about what we’re making collectively. Watch this area.
