Festival time

Already host to a celebrated literature festival, Cheltenham is set to take its place on the design circuit with the launch of the Cheltenham Design Festival next year.

The festival, which will be held in April, will see a host of design legends including Stefan Sagmeister and Kenneth Grange descend on the Gloucestershire spa town.

Cheltenham has always been something of a design hotspot, with consultancies including Brand on Shelf and Arthur Steen Horne Adamson based there. Indeed, ASHA partner Marksteen Adamson is on the festival’s board, and ASHA has created its identity.

The inaugural festival is based around the question ‘Who’s Designing the Future’. A series of talks will seek to address this, with confirmed speakers including Adrian Shaughnessy, David Hillman, Simon Waterfall and Paul Priestman.

There will also be an exhibition of works by the Cheltenham Design Foundation’s Academy – an initiative run by a team of professionals and based at the University of Gloucestershire, and the foundation will run a series of masterclasses in the run-up to and throughout the festival, which is headed by Sir John Hegarty.

Marksteen Adamson says, ‘The purpose of this festival is to celebrate new ideas and how these ideas improve business, health, transport, education and the world we live in.’

The Cheltenham Design Festival runs from 20-22 April 2012 at the Parabola Arts Centre in Cheltenham. For more information visit: http://cheltenhamdesignfestival.com