Updates

We’re excited to announce that Hireillo, a community of professional illustrators founded by creative director Darren Di Lieto, is coming on board as a supporter for this year’s festival.

G . F Smith return as partner for BDF2021!

We are delighted to welcome Jack Arts as a Main Partner for this year’s festival.

BDF are delighted to announce Canvas as a supporter for the 2021 conference.

BDF are delighted to announce that Clarkeprint, a leading commercial printer in Birmingham city centre, will become a Main Partner for the upcoming 2021 conference.

It’s been exactly two years since we were all together last at BDF 2019. So with that in mind, we thought it was time for an update on our plans for 2021.

We’re delighted to introduce the new name for our online events and invite you to Gather together on Thursday 1st July as we welcome 9 incredible speakers sharing words of wisdom.

Today we’re writing with the unfortunate news that BDF Conference, aka BDF2020, will no longer be happening this year as we have decided to postpone any large scale events until 2021 due to COVID-19.

Sadly, perhaps inevitably, the festival in June has been postponed to October. Read on for more details.

We’re excited to announce that Hire an Illustrator, a community of professional illustrators, animators, artists, and agents, founded by Darren Di Lieto, is coming on board as supporter for this year’s festival.

Due to the uncertainty the world is facing as a result of COVID-19, we have made the decision to make some changes to the scheduled programme of events planned for this June. BDF 2020 will now be one day of talks on Saturday 6th June, forgoing the day of workshops planned on Friday 5th June (with some caveats – read on for more).

We’re excited to announce the awesome Newspaper Club will be returning as a supporter of this year’s festival.

We are stoked to announce more of the awesome speakers who’ll be taking to the stage at BDF2020, alongside the already announced Brian Collins and Morag Myerscough!

Joining them are Bráulio Amado, Liz West, Anna Charity & Daniel Eatock, colourful characters we can’t wait to hear from, plus a workshop with our returning friend Anthony Burrill…

Find out more about his recent ‘dream project’ for Greenpeace, telling human stories through another species and some fantastic behind the scenes shots.

Our friends at the Association of Illustrators have launched a call for entries for the World Illustration Awards 2020. Find out how you can get involved.

We’re very grateful for support from local agencies who have help fund our festival and keep the tickets at amazing prices. Here’s some details in their own words from the excellent Sixth Story, who join us as a Supporter again this year.

Method in Motion will be supporting this year’s BDF and helping to provide videography support across our packed programme of events.

We are excited to announce that the Birmingham contemporary homeware shop minima will be joining as a supporter for BDF 2019.