The 14th Annual San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), which attracts 60,000 visitors annually from around the world, is returning this year as the first regional virtual design festival. The online-only event will take place June 15-25, celebrating with the theme Intentional Distortions. Highlights include expert talks, webinars, web conferences, and virtual tours with leading designers in multi-disciplines – from User Experience (UX), interactive design, VR experiences and virtual art, to branding, architecture, interior design, fashion and much more.
New this year will be the event’s first annual Product Showcase, highlighting innovative products, including those from start-up companies. The 2020 Design Awards will be juried by top industry professionals. These include: best-selling design/interiors book author and magazine editor Diane Dorrans Saeks; architect Takashi Yanai, FAIA; interior designer Catherine Kwong; and Google Product Design Lead Irina Blok. “The challenges of the pandemic afford us an opportunity to re-imagine how we celebrate design at a time of uncertainty and unprecedented restrictions,” said SFDW Executive Director Dawn Zidonis. “We as designers will rise to the challenge by transitioning our Design Festival to a virtual experience, giving access internationally to powerful ideas shaping the future, born in our region. San Francisco Design Week is a call to action to work together using design to solve global issues.”
Launched in 2006, San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is a popular week-long regional festival that showcases the unique intersection of ideas, design, business and entrepreneurism that makes the Bay Area “the birthplace of the future.” Now a global phenomenon, San Francisco’s international success “is born from a historically free-spirited entrepreneurialism, coupled with the imaginative vision of contemporary design and state-of-the-art technology. Pioneers of new ways of looking at the world and nimble Bay-Area start-ups are now among the world’s most influential design-led companies, producing products, services and experiences that profoundly influence the daily lives of billions of people globally,” said event organizers.
Through approximately 250 events, SFDW will provide approximately 60,000 attendees with unique access to conversations and virtual tours with the designers who are shaping the future. The event is organized by AIGA San Francisco, the professional association for design in partnership with IDSA, the Center for Architecture and AIA, SFFAMA, SEGD, SDN, IXDA, local consulates, design universities, neighborhood associations and museums. For more information please visit https://sfdesignweek.org.
Over the next few weeks SFDW be releasing more details on the event. Please contact virtual@sfdesignweek.org if you would like to contribute or participate. If you’re a community host who has already submitted a proposal, SFDW will be sending you additional information, resources and instructions to easily take your planned programming online on their platform. Please email events@sfdesignweek.org if you have any questions.
