Thirty Years of the Women’s Design + Research Unit (WD+RU)

The Beatrice Warde Memorial Lecture
With Teal Triggs and Siân Cook

Date: Tuesday 28th October 2025

Location: St Bride Foundation and online via Zoom

In-Person Timings (GMT):
Doors/Bar: 18:15pm
Talk Starts: 19:00pm
Talk Ends: 20:30pm

Tickets: £9, £12, £14

Please note: Ticket sales end at 4pm on the day of the talk. If available, tickets purchased in-person on the door will cost £16 per person. Please do call or email us to check if an event has any tickets left as you may not be admitted if we have sold out.

Online Timings (GMT): 19:00pm - 20:30pm

Online Tickets: £6, £8

Please note: Ticket sales end at 4pm on the day of the talk. You will be emailed the Zoom link for the talk at 6pm on the day of the talk. We will also send the link to all in-person ticket holders in case they are unable to attend and would like to join virtually.

Book tickets HERE

Within the contemporary context of social, political, and economic uncertainty the importance of having a voice for change is increasingly urgent and necessary. Thirty years ago, the Women’s Design + Research Unit (WD+RU) was formed in response to the male-dominated design and typographic industry. The voices of women working in the field were noticeably absent from the profession and in the emerging canons of graphic design history.

As educational activists, WD+RU sought to raise awareness of women working in visual communication through activist means such as posters, research projects, actions and events. WD+RU has never operated as a design studio; rather as a collective based on feminist principles (including care and collaboration, in tandem with undertaking projects that advocate for design and social responsibility). In their talk, Siân Cook and Teal Triggs, reflect critically upon their extensive archive of work from the 1990s to the present day, and ask the question: what comes next?

Siân Cook is a Graphic Designer and a Senior Lecturer at London College of Communication. She has a background in design for the music industry but has run her own design practice as no.star since 1994, working for a variety of arts and charity clients. Her research interests focus on the HIV and AIDS epidemic – a sector in which she has volunteered and designed for over 30 years. Siân has built a substantial archive of UK HIV and AIDS graphic ephemera, made it available online (www.hivgraphiccommunication.com) and continues to explore ways of disseminating and using the collection.

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and PGR Lead, School of Communication, Royal College of Art. She is an educator, historian, and writer whose research focuses primarily on graphic design history, criticism, and design research methods. She is author of Fanzines and co-editor of The Graphic Design Reader. Her current collaboration ‘Graphic Design Histories for Creative Dissent: Archiving and Ethical Challenges’ (with partners in Brazil, South Africa and the UK) is a three-year funded Trans-Atlantic Platform project. Triggs is co-editor of Design Issues (MIT Press), and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

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If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].