On 28 April 2023, Graphic Design colleagues from across the world—from Johannesburg to São Paulo—gathered virtually to take stock collectively of the work done so far through the Expanding Graphic Design Histories (EGDH) Seminar Series (2021-22), hosted by the Centre for Design History’s Graphic Design Histories strand.

Colleagues reflected on EGDH’s aim to highlight under-researched areas among Graphic Design historians and practitioners by sharing short position papers on how they make sense of ‘expanding’ graphic design histories in their own research and teaching. This was followed by a lively roundtable discussion from which a number of key topics for future work emerged, which were united in their commitment to identify, interrogate and dismantle coloniality in its epistemic and material manifestations archivally, methodologically, and pedagogically.

There was a consensus to engage in this work openly, collectively, and transnationally by forming an international network of Graphic Design historians and practitioners, tentatively entitled Expanding Graphic Design Histories Forum.

We thank colleagues for joining us on 28 April to inaugurate the Forum and look forward to continuing our conversations in the future.

If you would like to join the Forum, please get in touch with Dr Harriet Atkinson at h.atkinson2@brighton.ac.uk.

Image: Kadak Collective’s Creatives Against #CAA initiative to share open access posters via an online repository.