TDC September Highlights
Your monthly TDC Highlights newsletter has returned, but we’re going to be doing something a bit different from now on. As creatives, we all know how easy it is to disappear into a project and then, before you know it, months have gone by and so have a number of key industry events.
Going out to events isn’t just about socialising - although we do love a good party - it's a chance to get inspired by what others are doing and make interesting connections that might benefit your business in the future. Not only that, you could end up finding opportunities to exhibit or speak at these events, so there’s certainly no harm in being aware of the industry calendar.?
That’s why our TDC newsletter will now be used to highlight key events and cultural moments happening in the month ahead. You’ll definitely need it for the month of September, which is essentially festival season for the global design industry.?
Check out the events and themes of this month below.?
EVENTS
Paris Design Week: 5-15 September
Paris Design Week is essentially a version of the trade fair Maison&Objet created for the general public. Designers, architects, decorators, fashion designers, and chefs have curated spaces throughout the city to engage those outside of the creative industries in art, design, architecture and more.?
Extending over two weekends, the event comprises exhibitions and installations in 400 participating sites. You can expect cocktail parties, open houses, workshops, private tours and roundtables that reveal the best in trends, innovation, decoration and design.?
Helsinki Design Week; 6-15 September
Celebrating its 20th year this year, Helsinki Design Week features over 150 events targeted at both professionals and the general public. This includes signature events, companion events and satellite events, as well as a Children’s Design Week.?
Being the largest design festival in the Nordic countries, this is not an event to miss. This year’s theme ‘Underneath’ will encourage creatives to dive deep into their processes and highlight the most interesting phenomena in the creative fields.?
London Packaging Week; 11-12 September
London Packaging Week returns to ExCel London for two days this month to bring us the latest in packaging innovation. The Pentawards annual competition has partnered with London Packaging Week to bring global packaging design excellence together with the future of packaging, giving visitors an unrivalled platform to be inspired, innovate, and come together.?
This will include sessions from the National Gallery, Elmwood, Design Bridge and Partners, and Pizza Express. You can register for free here.
Zurich Design Weeks; 12-29 September
Every year in September, Zurich hosts the largest design event in Switzerland across three weeks with a variety of exhibitions, installations, talks, city tours and workshops. The industry and wider public are invited into ateliers and stores as brands and designers give an insight into their work.?
The event was initiated in 2022 by the Design Biennale Zürich and Archithema Verlag, with the support of Stadtentwicklung Zürich, and is backed by a non-profit association. For its third year, it will centre around the theme of GOOD NEWS, with a focus on progress and sustainable ideas as well as small and large innovations that make us optimistic.
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London Design Festival; 14-22 September
With the Mayor of London as Principal Supporter for London Design Festival 2024, the event will cover a number of themes that represent how design can shape our world. Visitors can expect discussion and exhibitions on The Healthy City, exploring how designers can contribute to the creation of healthier, greener cities as well as the theme Please Design Responsibly and Resilience and Repair that focus on how designers can create with the future in mind.
Multiple TDC clients will be participating in LDF 2024. This includes Project Love – a design community exploring how to foster love to improve how we relate to each other and nature – which is hosting an exhibition to showcase 16 design concepts (including artefacts, interactions and rituals of love) that create interactions between people and nature which increase empathy, tolerance and care in people’s daily lives.?
This will run from the 19th – 22nd September at Glaziers Hall, part of the Bankside Design District. To mark the opening of the exhibition, an exclusive drinks reception and talks will be held on the evening of 19th September in the River Gallery.
Design and innovation agency Morrama, who will also be hosting a special event in their Hackney Depot design studio between the 19th - 20th, which will include an exhibition showcasing the agency’s past and present work, and an evening series of talks on Friday.?
Vienna Design Week; 20-29 September
Austria's largest curated design festival Vienna Design Week will also take place later this month turning overlooked corners of the city into stages for design with both critical and playful approaches. The festival exists to explore new perspectives on the objects around us, unearthing design and manufacturing processes that use experimental methods specific to their location.
The festival covers product, furniture and industrial design as well as architecture, graphic design and social design. For the first time in 18 years, Vienna Design Week has moved its headquarter to a new and larger scale building in DOCKS, which was designed by ARTEC Architekten.
CULTURAL MOMENTS
This month’s highlights also includes a variety of cultural moments that, upon first glance, might not relate directly to the creative industries. Nonetheless, it's important to keep yourselves and your teams on top of what's going on around the world. Maybe you can use these awareness days as a conversation starter to inspire your team or even to look at some brands and businesses doing well in these areas.
First up we have Organic September which does what it says on the tin: celebrates everything organic! Eating and buying organic - whether its food or products - is becoming a priority for a lot of people as health, sustainability, and conscious consumerism are becoming increasingly important. Organic UK even has a section on their website spotlighting organic brands - why not take a look and post a thought or opinion on how design can encourage more people to choose organic brands using #OrganicSeptember?
In the US, Hispanic Heritage Month takes place every year for 30 days from 15 September, which is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September18, and Columbus Day (or Día de la Raza) also falls within this 30 day period. The month is used to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.?
On 18 September, International Equal Pay Day will serve as a reminder of the ongoing efforts to achieve equal pay for work of equal value and to end pay gap discrimination. Although the UK Government has insisted that businesses with over 250 people publicise their pay scales, around 98% of our design agencies have less that 50 people, so it's up to us to be transparent about it. If you’re a founder or owner, why not set an example and share your company’s pay scale on International Equal Pay Day this year.
Finally - although the name suggests otherwise - the world’s largest beer festival Oktoberfest will begin this month on the 21 September, running until the 6 October. It first started back in 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Bavarian crown prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Although the main festival is held in Munich, it is celebrated all over the world - who doesn’t want an excuse to celebrate beer and wear Lederhosen?