VISUAL COMMUNICATION at Beckmans College of Design invites you to:

NEW PLATFORMS — a biannual one day design festival at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, Sweden on October 18th, 2025!

The current state of established digital platforms and its influence on visual communication is under scrutiny by us as students, teachers and human beings. Because frankly, we’re disappointed with the current state of affairs.

Or as the students frame it:

There is a longing for the internet as it was when it was a new platform full of endless possibilities. When you turned on the computer, an entirely different, boundless world opened up. The internet and the new operating systems were tied to a belief in the future and created a space that allowed you to be creative, joyful, curious, and active. It was a place for people to connect, and it became a new platform for organizing, learning, and socializing. We look back at the internet’s various visual and auditory expressions as escapist and optimistic—something that stands in contrast to the general perception of the internet today.

Today, there is still no obvious meeting place in Sweden for visual communication where professional designers, students, and enthusiasts come together for discussion, experimentation, and exchange. That is why we present New Platforms, a one-day festival at Beckmans College of Design, where we invite you to a new platform:

A meeting place for creatives to listen, be inspired, and playfully engage with the world we have created for a day.

The festival can be compared to an operating system — its interface made up of different applications that correspond to activities, talks, workshops, and exhibitions. Its identity is inspired by the utopian memories our group carries from our first encounters with digital platforms, back when everything actually was New Platforms.

By inviting some of the most interesting practitioners in our field, we want to show alternatives and new possibilities, add some fun yet seriousness to a topic so big and difficult it might feel overwhelming.

Welcome to Beckmans College of Design on October 18th 2025

Tickets

  • Full price: 350 SEK 
  • Student: 100 SEK 

(All prices include VAT)

If you are a student and want to access the student discount code, send a DM to @beckmans_vk. The amount of student discount tickets are limited to 50.

Speakers

Laurenz Brunner
Source Type

Source Type is a collective, a platform, a proposal, a resource, a publisher, a type foundry, an index, a tool, a collection, a library, a workshop, a portal, a map, a mixtape, a classroom, a conspiracy, a speculation, a window, a dialogue, a beginning.” In short, Source Type is a platform for typographic research and visual literacy, active since 2022..

Source Type was launched in 2022 by renowned type and graphic designer Laurenz Brunner. Laurenz is known for his type and graphic design for clients like Schauspielhaus Zurich and Studio Barnhus and his many typefaces such as Akkurat and LL Bradford. In Sweden, he is maybe most known for the typeface Circular, used by everyone from Spotify to the Swedish Government. His work explores the balance between alternative and pop culture, concept and improvisation, art history and science fiction.

Read more

Vera van de Seyp

Vera van de Seyp is a computational designer and educator. Her work explores generative design tools, computational typography, and using artificial intelligence for design. She has collaborated with clients like WIRED, Serpentine Galleries London, and Google Arts and Culture. She also teaches and gives workshops and lectures to inspire creatives to make (and code) their own design tools. Vera completed a Research Assistantship with the Future Sketches group at MIT Media Lab.

Projects include, but are not limited to, playful websites, generative language installations, perpetually morphing typefaces, typographic tools, creative coding festivals, a blank map, and textiles made with a hacked knitting machine.

Read more

Elliott Cost
Internet Phone Book

Elliott Cost is a computer artist and organizer. He tends to the Special Fish, HTML Energy, and various other poetic websites. He is part of Extra Practice, a space for working and learning in the North of Rotterdam.

Most recently he initiated the Internet Phone Book with Kristoffer Tjavle, an annual publication for exploring the vast poetic web, featuring essays, musings and a directory with the personal websites of hundreds of designers, developers, writers, curators, and educators. The (phone) book will have its Scandinavian launch at NEW PLATFORMS.

Read more

Sara Kaaman & Johnny Chang
Munnen

Munnen (the mouth) is a miniature culture house for art, publishing, food, listening and collective making based on Byälvsvägen 18 in Bagarmossen, Stockholm, Sweden. Munnen is free and open for everyone!

Munnen (The Mouth) is a cultural space in Bagarmossen, Stockholm, dedicated to collective creation through art, reading, radio, food, and events. It serves as both venue and platform for exchange, hosting Läsrum (a reading room), Tungan Radio, and participatory programs that foster dialogue, listening, and community around cultural practices.

Read more

© MapTiler © OpenStreetMap contributors

Organized by

Visual Communication @ Beckmans College of Design@beckmans_vkvisualcommunication@beckmans.se