Symposium The Design of History and the History of Design


London College of Communication
15 September, 2025



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SpeakerS and Abstracts:

Huda Almazroua
Alberto Atalla Filho
Russ Bestley
Kevin Biderman
Silvia Bombardini
David Cross
Dora Souza Dias
Sam Gathercole
Ian Horton and Ian Hague
Jennifer Hankin
Zarna Hart
John-Patrick Hartnett
Fenella Hitchcock
Abbie Vickress and Sakis Kyratzis
Christopher Lacy
Timothy Miller
Danah Nassief
Jesse O’Neill
Nina O’Reilly
Patrick O’Shea
David Preston
Cheryl Roberts
Rebecca Ross
Antoin Sharkey
Andrew Slatter
Kate Trant
Vanessa Vanden Berghe
Judy Willcocks
Christin Yu



A symposium for UAL’s Design History research community


The Design of History and the History of Design is a one-day symposium that maps research into, through or at the boundaries of design history at UAL. While design history may underpin our teaching across different disciplines, research in design history across UAL is somewhat hidden. This symposium aims to share and make visible the work of researchers (staff and students) at all career stages across all UAL colleges.

Exploring the intersections of historical narrative and design practice, it examines how history is constructed, represented, and mediated through design, and how the discipline of design itself is shaped by its evolving historiography.

The symposium will serve as the starting point for a Design History Network at UAL, bringing together researchers from across the university. It also lays the foundation for a welcoming research community in design history, with potential for ongoing events, collaboration, publications, and curriculum development.

If you have any questions or would like to be involved in future activities, please get in touch with the convenors:

Rujana Rebernjak
r.rebernjak@lcc.arts.ac.ukTai Cossich
t.cossich@lcc.arts.ac.uk
Please also sign up for the UAL Design Histories Newsletter




    Christopher Lacy

    Breaking the Press: A Brief History of The Wapping Printers Dispute


    My paper explores the 1986 Wapping Printers Dispute as a contested site of technological change. 

    In the UK, graphic design education more often presents the transition from hot metal typesetting to (cold) offset lithography and early desktop publishing as an inevitable triumph of new technology over outdated processes. Yet this technological shift was not simply a matter of progress; it was violently enforced through the collusion of state and corporate power, leading to one of the most significant industrial disputes in British working-class history.

    Taking a historical materialist approach, this paper positions The Wapping Dispute as a critical moment in graphic design history, unpacking the socio-political conditions that enabled both the transformation of the sector and the resistance to incoming technologies. Particular attention is paid to the solidarity networks that emerged, specifically the Lesbian and Gays Support the Printworkers. Their role not only highlights the presence of a vibrant queer activist network in 1980s London – partly enabled by the progressive policies of the Greater London Council – but also marks an important step in advancing LGBTQ+ influence within the trade union movement.

    By foregrounding what was lost – not just a mode of production, but a set of social relations – this paper interrogates how history itself is designed; edited and presented in ways that tend to obscure conflict and political struggle. Exploring histories of automation also opens-up conversation around current ‘progress’ within the design sector. The slow, contested, logistical and visible mechanical changes of the past have today become fast, monopolistic, exponential and intangible. As a sector we celebrate speed, and the language of inevitability and improvement once again frames transition. As atomised workers with diminishing agency, we subscribe to our cloud-based tools which are forever updated and optimised.



    — Christopher Lacy


    Chris Lacy is a university lecturer and freelance graphic designer currently based in London, and originally from Nottingham. Chris works as an hourly paid lecturer at UAL and as a part time fractional lecturer at the University of Brighton, teaching across Foundation, BA and MA graphic design courses.

    Chris completed his Masters in 2022, studying Art and Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2019, he played a key role in forming the UK’s first trade union for graphic designers, established as a branch of the grassroots union United Voices of the World. From 2020 to 2022, he also volunteered as a caseworker with the union.

    Together with Ayşe Köklü, Chris runs No-Hype Type, a small independent publisher exploring the relationship between Typography, Language and Technology.