The Center for Design Thinking will bring five renowned relational designers to Design Forge 2026 through "Forging Fridays," an open access series on the latest relational design thinking strategies.
This year, The Center for Design Thinking is taking a new approach to its annual Design Forge open to anyone who wants to join in on the fun.
Forging Fridays, a virtual workshop series starting Jan. 30, focuses on first-hand practice with emergent relational design strategies. The goal is to explore how we can each apply these emerging strategies to your own life. In partnership with the Systematic Design Association and the Future of Design in Higher Education, this opportunity allows educators and practitioners from across the globe to meet and learn directly from acclaimed relational designers.
Sessions are scheduled for the last Friday of the month at 2 p.m. January through May and feature a different design thinking creator that will share practical, actionable strategies we can implement across our professional, personal and civic lives.
There will be five total Forging Friday speakers: Michael Osterweil, Lesley-Ann Noel, Haley Fitzpatrick, Rafe Steinhauer, and Wayne Li. Sessions will be January 30, February 27, March 27, April 24, and May 29, leading up to the FDHE conference on June 24-26, 2026. Sessions will focus on social impact, how systems shape daily lives, generative AI, and what mindsets to use during the design thinking process.
The first session will be with Michal Osterweil, one of the closing keynote speakers at Design Forge last year, with a workshop called “Slippages to Portals: A Laboratory for practicing and implementing relationally” that explores relational politics and how “slippages” can become portals.
Forging Fridays will culminate in the Future of Design in Higher Education (FDHE) hosted at Elon and Duke University this June. FDHE is an international organization of design educators committed to building community and exchanging ideas about teaching and running programs in human-centered design in higher education.
The Center for Design Thinking invites anyone interested to register and learn more on our website.
