The tenth annual St Bride Library conference will take place this November; its theme the notion of ‘tension' in creative practice...

Design is fuelled by relationships integral to the discipline: colour and form, form and function; client and designer, analogue and digital. And a resulting piece of work is quite often the product of a unique tension between two elements.

For Critical Tensions, curators John Walters and Becky Chilcott have invited speakers to discuss how they balance and manage opposition in their work and in their pursuit of ‘perfect tension'.

The theme also taps into another prevalent issue: that times of economic constraint can engender creativity. Moreoever, how has the creative industry responded to the societal changes we've witnessed in the last few years?

Speakers set to discuss these issues and more include Phil Baines, Jonathan Barnbrook, Zoë Bather, Tom Farrand, Amelia Gregory, Matt Jones, Alan Kitching, Gerry Leonidas, Vaughan Oliver, Paul Rennie, Lucienne Roberts, Jack Schulze, Steve Watson, Matt Webb, Rebecca Wright and Derek Yates.

The moderators for the event will be Phil Baines and Emily King and there will also be demonstrations by Paul Antonio (calligraphy), Douglas Bevans (bookbinding), Mark Frith (stonecutting), Helen Ingham and Richard Lawrence (typesetting, linocutting).

The two-day event takes place between November 10-11 and tickets are available, here. They cost £120 at full price; £90 for Friends of St Brides Library; and £50 (£35 Friends of St Brides Library) for full time students. The money that St Brides raises from its talks and conferences directly supports the Library. More details on St Brides and its activities at stbride.org/library.