SEGD (the Society for Experiential Graphic Design), a multidisciplinary global community of professionals, has announced details of its 2026 conference, which will take place at Kansas City Marriott Downtown in Kansas City, US, from 22 to 24 October.
The agenda features three days of presentations and tours, plus expanded NEXPO programming, awards celebrations, and pre-conference learning.
Under the theme Meet Me in the Middle, the destination conference will take Kansas City’s position at the geographic centre of the US as a starting point to explore how design creates connection across people, place, technology and culture.
Cybelle Jones, CEO of SEGD, says: "As experience designers, we have always lived in the middle. Between client vision and user need. Between the built environment and the human spirit. Between the world as it is and the world as it should be.
"This conference is about what happens when we stop treating that middle as a place of tension and start treating it as a place of possibility. Kansas City is the perfect city to have that conversation."
To find out more and register to attend, please click here.
Rick Smith, VP of experiential design at Dimensional Innovations; Wendy Manning, founder and managing principal of Demeter Strategy Design; and Jackie Berra, founder and brand experience director of JBerra Consulting & Design, will co-chair the conference. SEGD Kansas City Chapter chairs Kate Schmidt and Sarah Onken will support.
Studio Loutsis developed the conference identity.
Four perspectives, three days
The 2026 conference agenda is arranged around four interconnected perspectives: the Geographic Middle, the Collaborative Middle, the Emotional Middle and the Social Middle.
These move the conversation from the city and its systems to the human experience and design’s responsibility to help people navigate complexity and bridge divides. Kansas City serves as a thread throughout the curriculum.
Over three days of talks, tours, celebration and exchange, the event is set to demonstrate that the middle is not a compromise. Rather, it is where perspectives converge, assumptions are challenged, and meaning is created.
The event kicks off with a series of optional pre-conference experiences on Wednesday, 21 October, which require separate booking. These include two focused bootcamps and a day-long destination tour to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.
On Wednesday evening, Archetype will host a Welcome Party at Boulevard Brewing Company Beer Hall.
Day 1
Thursday, 22 October, opens the main programme with a focus on the Geographic Middle, rooting the event in its host city, its collaborative design ecosystem, civic ambition, and culture of making.
In the morning, Dawn Taylor, executive director of AIA Kansas City and the Center for Architecture & Design, will present Kansas City’s Secret Sauce: A Collaborative Design Ecosystem, followed by Design as an Act of Repair with Cynthia Sharpe, senior principal and executive creative director at TAIT.
Kathy Nelson, president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission and Visit KC, and Tucker Trotter, CEO of Dimensional Innovations, will host World Cup and Beyond: KC’s ROE.
A closing session titled The Emotional Architecture of Healthcare will be presented by conference co-chair Smith; Bethany Foss, design leader at HOK; Erin Nybo of CannonDesign; and Mara Sabatini of HDR.
In the afternoon, delegates can choose from 11 designer-led tours across Kansas City, each providing behind-the-scenes access to a different aspect of experiential design.
Thursday concludes with the President’s Welcome Reception and Auction for Excellence, an annual celebration supporting SEGD’s educational programmes and featuring unique work and experiences contributed by SEGD Fellows and community members.
Day 2
Friday, 23 October, explores the Emotional Middle, and considers how wayfinding, lighting, media and storytelling contribute to human-centred experiences.
Drawing from environmental psychology and his book The Science of Wayfinding, Jonathan Mugmon, principal and wayfinding director at Populous, will present Designing for Human Instinct.
This will be accompanied by a session titled Light as Material, Human Experience as Purpose: A Human-Centered Philosophy of Lighting Design from François Roupinian, IALD, president of Lightemotion.
Additionally, Sara Pasch, director of integrated media at the Obama Foundation; Aki Carpenter, global VP and chief creative officer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates; and Valerie Chin and Megan Gargagliano of batwin + robin will speak in Filming Democracy: Media Storytelling at the Obama Presidential Center Museum.
The morning will be rounded out by a mainstage presentation from Jonna Mendez, former CIA chief of disguise and a leading specialist on the relationship between identity, perception and deception.
On Friday afternoon, the agenda features NEXPO talks, mentorship and networking, followed by the NEXPO Reception, the 2026 SEGD Global Design Awards ceremony, and a reception in the venue's historic Barney Allis Lobby.
Day 3
On Saturday, 24 October, the programme starts with a discussion on the future of experiential design education.
Speakers will include Joell Angel-Chumbley, experience design lead for the City of Cincinnati; Lisa Maione, associate professor at Kansas City Art Institute; Jeremy Shellhorn, associate professor of design at the University of Kansas; and Neeta Verma, retired associate professor at the University of Notre Dame.
SEGD will then honour the recipients of the 2026 SEGD Achievement Awards, presented by SEGD past president Traci Sym.
It will also recognise its newest SEGD Fellows: Jonathan Jackson, creative director and partner of WSDIA; Donna Lawrence, owner and creative director of Donna Lawrence Productions; and Despina Macris and Mark Ross, founders of dotdash.
In the afternoon, architect and author Tom Waggoner of AIA will present How Kansas City Became the Sports Architecture Capital of the World.
This will be followed by Making Space for Tension with Taylor Loutsis, founder and creative director of Studio Loutsis, and Paula Neston, cultural practice executive at Dimensional Innovations, who will discuss the signage and wayfinding for the newly launched Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Paul Skinner of Tellart will present an additional afternoon session, which will be followed by the conference closing keynote, The Creative Power of Uncertainty, with Lucy Holmes, founder and creative director of Holmes Studio.
In this final session, Holmes will invite designers to resist attending to complex isssues too quickly, and consider the creative possibilities that emerge when they stay in an unresolved space.
The Conference concludes on Saturday evening with a final celebration at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, where attendees will enjoy an inside look at the new Encounters exhibition.
Focus on NEXPO
This year, SEGD’s NEXPO sector marketplace will take place across two full days for the first time, and share the ballroom with the Conference mainstage.
NEXPO programming includes product and technology discovery, networking, EXP mentorship meet-ups, a preview of findings from the 2026 SEGD Salary and Employment Report, and the participatory 'What Needs Bridging?' wall, which will share attendees’ views on where design could support their practices, cities and communities.
The SEGD Xlab took place in New York City from 22 to 23 July 2026.
Rebecca Hardy has over 10 years' experience in the culture and heritage sector. She studied Fine Art at university and has written for a broad range of creative organisations including artists, galleries, and retailers. When she's not writing, she spends her time getting lost in the woods and making mud pies with her young son.
