Meet Me in the Middle: Your Guide to the 2026 SEGD Conference Experience

August 19, 2026

Cybelle Jones

Explore the talks, tours, expanded NEXPO, special events, and experiences bringing the SEGD community together in Kansas City this October.

This October, SEGD brings our global community together for the 2026 SEGD Conference Experience Kansas City (October 22 through 24, with optional pre-conference bootcamps and an excursion to Crystal Bridges on October 21). With the theme Meet Me in the Middle, the conference uses Kansas City’s literal position at the geographic heart of the country as a lens for everything our community stands for: the collaboration, the empathy, and the craft that live in the space between vision and need, story and place.

The full agenda is now live, a rich lineup of speakers, panels, tours, and celebrations built around four thematic pillars: the Geographic Middle, the Collaborative Middle, the Emotional Middle, and the Social Middle.

Day One – The Center of Gravity

Thursday opens with the Geographic Middle, grounding the conference in the city hosting it. Dawn Taylor, Executive Director of AIA Kansas City, sets the stage with the civic leadership behind initiatives like KC Design Week. Cynthia Sharpe of TAIT follows with a look at third spaces and how design can be more inclusive and healing, drawn from her work leading global location-based entertainment projects. Kathy Nelson, President and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission and Visit KC, closes the morning with the story behind turning the smallest U.S. host city into a centerpiece of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a metro area that keeps punching above its weight.

After a networking break, we shift focus to the Collaborative Middle, with talks exploring the large-scale design work reshaping the region: the nationally renowned KC Streetcar, the FIFA tournament, and placemaking design. Tours run from 1:30 to 4:30, giving attendees the chance to experience Kansas City firsthand, and NEXPO opens at lunch and stays open through the afternoon for networking and hands-on activities.

Thursday evening brings our annual President’s Reception and Auction, a can’t-miss celebration supporting SEGD’s educational initiatives as a 501(c)(3), featuring one-of-a-kind collections from Lance Wyman and other SEGD Fellows.

Day Two – Heart and Expertise

Friday belongs to the Emotional Middle. Kansas City local Jonathan Mugmon opens with a keynote on wayfinding, Designing for Human Instinct, making the case that the next evolution of design practice depends less on aesthetic innovation alone and more on understanding how people actually perceive, feel, and move through space. He’ll follow up with a book signing in NEXPO that afternoon.

From there, healthcare and wellness practitioners share exemplary work happening in Kansas City around children’s mental health and neurodivergent design. 

After a networking break, Lucy Holmes, Founder and Creative Director of Holmes Studio in London, shares her philosophy on the heart of storytelling and human-oriented design, drawn from decades of work with institutions like the Tate and the National Gallery. François Roupinian, founder of Lightemotion, closes the morning with a look at light as architectural material, drawing on projects from Dior exhibitions to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Museum.

NEXPO hosts lunch and the afternoon opens up for meaningful networking, including an interactive “What Needs Bridging?” Wall, an analog installation where attendees write what they believe design needs to bridge in their practice, their city, and their community, curated into a living document throughout the conference. NEXPO will also host a teaser talk on findings from the 2026 SEGD Salary and Employment Report, a first look at the data before the full report is released. 

Friday evening brings the NEXPO Reception and the 2026 SEGD Global Design Awards, hosted by 2025 Chair Abigail Honor, where this year’s winners, including Best of Show and the Sylvia Harris Life Centered Design Award, are announced.

Day Three – Bridges We Build

Saturday morning opens with an educators panel featuring Lisa J. Maione, a designer, artist, and educator whose research-based work explores the screen as material, and Jeremy Shellhorn, Professor of Visual Communication Design at the University of Kansas and founder of the Design Outside Studio, a roaming classroom bringing design students into national parks. 

The morning continues with the 2026 SEGD Achievement Awards and Fellow recognition, featuring SEGD Fellow Alan Jacobson and SEGD Past President Traci Sym, followed by a celebratory mimosa and Bloody Mary networking break. Emerging Professionals gather for a special lunch at Populous‘ newly designed headquarters.

The afternoon turns to the Social Middle, exploring how design carries responsibility for the divides our members navigate every day, in airports, transit hubs, cultural institutions, and public plazas. 

Taylor Loutsis of Studio Loutsis and Paula Neston of Dimensional Innovations present “Making Space for Tension,” on the signage and wayfinding behind the newly opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The conference closes with a keynote panel on the Obama Presidential Center, featuring Sara Pasch of OPC and Aki Carpenter of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, alongside Batwin + Robin, on what it took to make media for a place dedicated to democracy, public service, and the power of people to create change, while navigating an ambitious vision, evolving content, and stakeholders that include a former President and First Lady.

Our closing party sends everyone off at the National WWI Memorial and Museum.

NEXPO, Expanded to Two Full Days

This year, NEXPO expands to two full days and moves into the heart of the conference experience. For the first time, conference programming and NEXPO come together in the same space, so you can move seamlessly between talks, conversations, hands-on exploration, and the industry partners helping bring the work to life.

The result is more time to connect, discover new products, materials, and technologies, and continue the conversations sparked on stage without ever leaving the action. NEXPO becomes more than a destination between sessions; it’s part of the experience itself.

Special Events You Won’t Want to Miss

As you make your travel plans, be sure to join us for the optional pre-conference bootcamps and Crystal Bridges excursion (October 21), the President’s Reception and Auction (October 22), the NEXPO Reception and Global Design Awards Celebration (October 23), and our closing celebration at the National WWI Memorial and Museum (October 24). We encourage all attendees to stay through Saturday night to celebrate with the entire community.

The Value of Attending

The 2026 SEGD Experience offers more than inspiring talks. It’s an opportunity to grow as a designer, a leader, and a member of a global community. Across three days, you’ll gain:

• Perspective on place, drawn from the design culture that built Kansas City into a genuine design capital
• Tools for collaboration, from budget negotiations to accessibility, that hold competing needs in tension without losing sight of the work
• Insight into human-centered design, from wayfinding informed by environmental psychology to storytelling rooted in empathy
• A clearer view of design’s social responsibility, seen through projects like the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and the Obama Presidential Center 

Above all, you’ll experience the power of connection: being part of a community that believes design can meet people, and each other, in the middle.

Registration is open now at segd.org/events.

We can’t wait to meet you in Kansas City.