BOUNCE 2026: Expanding the Horizons of Design

What does it take to create a space where designers, thinkers, and creators engage with design as a dynamic process that reflects identity, fosters community, and embraces ecological futures beyond human-centred perspectives.

BOUNCE combines the Design Challenge, an interactive model turning collaboration, critique, and hands-on creation into a shared experience for designers, with a vibrant festival programme of talks, panels, workshops, and presentations. Together, they bring established studios, emerging talent, and leading voices from design, art, and creative technology into one space—offering attendees the chance to explore new ideas, experience experimental projects, and engage directly with the practices shaping the future of the field.

The founder of BOUNCE, Danielle Townsend, is a designer, educator, and strategist whose work has shaped the festival into a platform that connects creative practitioners across disciplines, especially those in their mid-career and beyond, with an opportunity to pause and reflect, to consider their role in shaping the future and the need to stay curious throughout their career. 

With a career spanning leadership in design programmes, industry–academia partnerships, national initiatives, and co-founding the early-career platform The New Now, Townsend continues to build bridges across the design community. We spoke with her about BOUNCE, the upcoming BOUNCE Festival and the opportunities it creates for emerging and established creatives alike.

Slanted: BOUNCE has grown into a festival with an international roster of speakers and events. What was your original vision for the festival, and how has it evolved to include talks, workshops, and panels alongside the Design Challenge?

BOUNCE began as a personal research project where I asked creatives what they needed to feel more connected, curious, and supported in their practice. From this came BOUNCE’s mission: exploring the process of design,  the messy in-between where ideas bounce, shift, and make sense before outcomes appear. That focus has remained central as I move into the second iteration of the event.
To bring new perspectives to the stage, I committed to coaching first-time speakers, and for the 2026 festival launched an open call that attracted both emerging and established creatives across disciplines. I also wanted BOUNCE to extend beyond a single annual event, so we ran workshops throughout the year on playful explorations of type, motion, and AI,  all without fixed outcomes, simply encouraging curiosity often lost in day-to-day industry pressures.
At the live event, panel discussions play a key role, offering critical conversations that bring together voices from academia, policy, innovation, and tech, with the aim of provoking thought rather than providing neat answers.
BOUNCE remains a festival for the community, by the community, shaped directly by conversations with practitioners. After the 2025 event, attendees said they were most inspired by the new voices, designers using creative problem-solving to support communities and create meaningful impact. Many felt ready for work with real purpose, which led me to create the Challenge: a space for the design community to engage with socially, culturally, and environmentally important projects. This work was showcased during Irish Design Week and will be part of the programme again next January.

The Challenge is a central part of BOUNCE. How does it complement the wider festival programme, and what kinds of experiences or outcomes do you hope participants take away?

This year’s theme, “Being”, explores what it means to exist, connect, and communicate through design, expressed through three strands: Being Human (identity, inclusion, care), Beyond Being (non-human and ecological futures), and Being in Place (communication, community, visibility). The Challenge sits within Being in Place, asking whose voices are seen or silenced  and ultimately, who we are designing for.
While the wider BOUNCE programme examines how design happens, the Challenge tests those ideas in real time, making the design process visible. It brings together designers, non-designers, and communities to apply critical and creative methods to complex, real-world issues, showing design as a tool for social impact, not just visual output.
In partnership with A Playful City, the Challenge explored tensions in contested public spaces, focusing on Drury Street in Dublin. Participants developed speculative concepts from June to November, engaged in workshops, and showcased an iteration of their work during Irish Design Week, inviting the public to co-create and treat the project as an evolving entity. A related panel discussion highlighted key themes emerging from the work.
An iteration of the showcase will appear in the Trinity College foyer in January, alongside contributions from challenge participants on stage. Ultimately, we hope people leave with two things: an understanding of design as inquiry and iteration, and a sense of empowerment to apply curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration in their own practice, whether in design, policy, education, or community work.

Supporting emerging designers is core to your work. How does BOUNCE facilitate connections between early/mid-career creatives and established practitioners, and why is that important for the industry?

Supporting emerging designers has always been central to the advocacy work I have undertaken in the design community throughout my career. I continue to bring this philosophy into BOUNCE. Valuing new perspectives and centering new voices challenges the status quo and brings breadth and depth to the conversation that can sometimes feel lacking. Platforming those from underrepresented groups: women, people of colour, and creatives who have come to Ireland to build their practice, is also vital. The design community can appear to be very homogenous, from the type of student choosing to study design, through to those who we know as ‘household’ names. There’s an entire spectrum of design talent that many may not have had the opportunity to experience before, people who are making real waves in the industry through their thinking, their process, and their bravery to do things differently.
Early and mid-career creatives bring an openness, a willingness to experiment, test, and embrace serendipity, that can be incredibly energising for the wider design community. At BOUNCE, I try to create spaces where that curiosity and risk-taking are not just welcomed but celebrated, and where emerging voices can be in genuine dialogue with more established practitioners from national and international design communities.
When you curate a lineup that combines both — the experience of those who have built long, thoughtful careers and the fresh perspectives of those forging new paths, you get something special: a richness of conversation that feels raw, uncomfortable at times, authentic, and alive. That dialogue, that exchange of energy and ideas, is what keeps our industry evolving.

Which sessions, speakers, or projects this year are you particularly excited about, and why?

It's really hard to pick just one. I’m really looking forward to all sessions. This year’s theme, Being, is one I’m genuinely excited to explore - particularly in how each session and speaker interprets and responds to it. I’m looking forward to seeing Studio Spass’s work and process, especially how their practice invites engagement from viewers. Ciara Wade and Shane Casey bring a compelling human-sciences perspective, reminding us that design is rooted in behaviour, research, and service systems. For type lovers like myself, the practices of Patrycja and Agyei, situated at the intersection of design craft, business strategy, and typographic innovation - promise to be especially exciting. Luna Maurer’s inclusion adds a rich experimental, mixed-media dimension that pushes disciplinary boundaries and encourages creative risk-taking. And finally, the panels will bring the theme of Being to life, not by providing definitive answers but by provoking new questions and aiming to offer thoughtful challenges that deepen the overall discourse.

For those attending BOUNCE for the first time, what’s the best way to make the most of the festival experience?

For anyone joining BOUNCE for the first time, the best thing you can do is come with curiosity, openness, and a willingness to engage. This isn’t a passive, sit-back-and-listen type of festival; it’s an interactive, conversational experience. We want people to ask questions, challenge ideas, and share their own perspectives. We’ll have the “bouncey” mic ready to launch into the audience as always, giving you the opportunity to become part of the conversation.

I’d say: spend time not just at the talks, but in the in-between moments, the coffee queues, the post-panel chats. That’s where some of the most valuable connections happen. BOUNCE is designed to dissolve hierarchy: whether you’re a student, a mid-career practitioner, or an established leader, everyone’s contribution has value.

And finally, take the spirit of BOUNCE, that focus on process, reflection, and experimentation, back into your own practice. The festival is really a catalyst: it’s about recharging creative energy, reconnecting with why you design, and finding your next ‘what if?’ If you leave feeling both inspired and slightly unsettled, in the best possible way, then you’ve made the most of it.

We’d like to thank Danielle Townsend for sharing her insights and giving us a closer look at the vision, impact, and future of BOUNCE. For more information and to join the festival, visit BOUNCE! 

When?
January 16th 2026

Where?
Trinity College
The Arts Building
Dublin, Ireland

Tickets available here!

© Pictures by BOUNCE, Hazel Coonagh, Aleksandra Schmidt