Catch Stefan Sagmeister, Gab Bois and Dinamo at Forward Festival Berlin

Stefan Sagmeister, Gab Bois, Mr Bingo, Anton & Irene, FutureDeluxe and Dinamo are among the speakers at the Forward Festival Berlin 2026, with more than 50 thought leaders appearing across three stages over its two days, in keynotes, on-stage conversations and interactive sessions. Held at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) on 27-28 August 2026, the Berlin edition is one of the three annual events that Forward puts on for the creative industry alongside Frankfurt and Vienna – all tied together by the theme: ‘Turn Ideas into Action.’ Running since 2015, Forward has had Paula Scher, Refik Anadol, Malika Favre and Erik Kessels on its stages. “Range is the point,” the festival’s team explains. “Visitors should leave with several standpoints, not one, which means booking heavyweights like Sagmeister next to people who are still early in their careers.” Graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, creative technologists and motion designers are all on the programme. “A graphic designer can learn just as much from an illustrator’s process as from another designer’s, and those unexpected intersections are often where the most valuable insights emerge,” Forward’s team adds. “The line-up holds together because every speaker answers the same question: how did you get from the idea to the thing itself?” the team notes. “They talk through the messy middle, the detours, the calls that could have gone another way.” Sagmeister’s talk is about design’s place in life’s bigger questions, while Dinamo arrives as a type foundry preoccupied with how typography carries identity and attitude. Brooklyn-based duo Anton & Irene, represented by Irene Pereyra, bring work for Spotify, IKEA and The Met, and FutureDeluxe, the London studio whose clients include Apple, Nike and Gucci, holds the immersive, technology-led end of the programme. Gemma O’Brien, The Mill, Vera van de Seyp, Sander Plug and Beetroot are on the bill, too.