I haven’t attended the London Design Festival for a few years. It’s generally very furniture and product design focused, but there are a few interesting graphic design things on offer this year. (You can search the full programme by discipline, so I searched for events under the ‘Graphic Design & Visual Communications’ heading.)

The festival runs from Saturday 14 to Sunday 22 September – there are a few things going on right across the week and the opening and closing weekends, some things on specific days and times. And it’s a mix of free and paid events.

Kicking off on the Saturday (and running right the way through the festival), Overlooked 2.o, Marina Willer and Dan Mather’s show of prints at Borough Yards, looks well worth checking out:

“Marina Willer’s acclaimed drain cover prints, now part of the V&A permanent collection, returns with a new series of designs featuring new patterns and fluoro colours, screen printed by Dan Mather in his studio in North Yorkshire, on coloured paper by Fedrigoni.”

They’re also hosting a couple of screenprinting workshops on Saturday 14th (ticketed, 11am or 2pm tickets, £25 per person).

While you’re over there why not stop off at the Pith notebook making workshop? Run by the folks from Pith, home of yummy notebooks. 11am to 7pm daily, all week.

If you’re there towards the end of the festival, you could also check out the Material Matters fair, on at the Bargehouse at OXO Tower Wharf.

“Material Matters brings together over 50 world-leading brands, designers, makers, manufacturers and organisations to celebrate the importance of materials and their ability to shape our lives.”

Much more product and furniture focused, but worth a look. Tickets are £15 per person. It runs from the 18th to the 21st, 10am to 6pm daily.

Another highlight looks like this show at Pentagram, about a collaboration with Karel Martens on a series of fabrics for Liberty. 11 to 4pm each weekend, no ticket required.

You can read more about the project on the Liberty Fabrics site, and watch a wonderful short film with Martens; and check out Martens’ website too. (He’s also doing a talk at Pentagram on Thursday 12 September, though I can’t see where you get the tickets from.)

On the opening Saturday you can also catch a Bankside Ghost Signs walk with the wonderful Sam Roberts from Ghost Signs and BLAG.

Over at the Truman Brewery, cycling fans will want to check out Rapha’s show, Rapha20: Past Forward:

“Glancing back and moving up as we mark twenty years of performance, progress and panache. A celebration of Rapha’s origins and creative continuum as innovators in cycling, Past Forward is about looking at the moments and ideas that defined Rapha, and looking forward to what the future of cycling could hold.” The exhibition is open at various times, check the site for details (free, but ticket required).

Sticking with bikes, on Wednesday 18th and Friday 20th you can check out TfL’s Cycleways, Maps and Routes show, about their TfL Go app, which is on at the Royal College of Art, from 2 to 6pm each day. (Read more about the app on the TfL blog.)

Also on the evening of Wednesday 18th you could make your way to Better Bankside presents... A evening of Typeface (‘an’ evening perhaps?)

“As part of London Design Festival 2024, Better Bankside is hosting leading creative agencies and typeface designers to discuss the inspiration behind their work. TypeLand explore how an amazing bespoke font was created for The Globe. Tothepoint discuss their work for “force for good” campaigns including the Southwark Climate Collective. The Team look at how they reshaped the typeface of one of the largest and oldest savings organisations in the UK.”

Then on the morning of Friday 20th (10am to 12:30pm), there’s Tracking the Heritage: a Signage Workshop for Camden Green Loop.

“Take part in a Camden Green Loop and Camden Highline’s workshop that will shape new heritage signage for Camden Town. The session will combine the expertise of design professionals with participants’ lived experience to create a signage system that tells the story of Camden’s past and highlights places of interest.”

Lots of good stuff!

You can load up your own itinerary with the My Programme function on the site (just register with your email first).

As ever the festival identity was designed by Domenic Lippa and Pentagram – it’s looking good, but by god they need to sort out their use of the correct typographic marks on the website – just look at that hideous ‘apostrophe’ in ‘Camden's’ on the penultimate line. Eurgh.