Around the world, design weeks have become a popular way for designers in a multitude of industrial, fashion, tech, and civic industries to come together to discuss how design impacts society.

Now, for the first time, Calgary has its own design week, which launched on Aug. 7, to reveal to the public how good design, when done properly, is almost invisible, and is actually essential to the city.

“Our theme for Design Week is design in plain sight, which really speaks to that. Design is everywhere, and it’s not often until someone points it out to you, or says, ‘oh, do you notice this?’ That then you recognize it, and then it becomes part of your story,” said
Shannon Lanigan, co-founder of D.Talks and Director for Design Week Calgary.

“Everything is designed, and often people don’t notice if it’s well designed, but they certainly notice if it’s poorly designed, especially when it comes to civic design. And so civic design is another piece of this urban planning architecture, and why, why cities are built the way they are.”

She said embracing many different facets of design was also one of the major goals for the week.

“Fashion, visual design, design of film and design of sets and what have you, we’re really trying to start to bring community together in a really beautiful way,” Lanigan said.

“Even if they say, ‘well, I’m not a designer, I don’t know anything about design,’ you don’t have to. You need to know how you like to live your life. You need to know what’s important for you and your family or your friends and how you like to interact with your city, that’s all.”

Design from what people wear, to where they wear it

Talks scheduled for the inaugural week included everything from fashion design to architecture, to visual graphics and UX design, to exploring how the brain interprets design and what that means for neuroaesthetics.

Luis Berumem, Director of Calgary UX, said that every designer has something in common: They all want to solve problems for people they might never meet.

“We all want to have a creative input, and if we’re lucky, we get to see that at the end of the day. I think it’s just a manifestation of how the human spirit needs to grow and how we need to project any sense of hope and creativity to whatever we do,” he said.

That talk, sold out before the beginning of the week, was focused on innovative design and was put on by Kerry Harmer along with panellists Kristofer Kelly-Frère and Greg Hart.

It’s a topic that Berumem said was resonating with Calgarians during this time of city transformation.

“I think it’s not only it’s a very special place in terms of how people live, but the sense of people going out their way, finding a third space that is not common and the office, I think that’s really that’s really wonderful and beautiful,” he said.

He said that Calgary has done a good job of creating a diversity of spaces, and that the week was a way of further bringing that diversity of thought by different industries and creatives together.

Industries collaborating on creating a better

Lanigan said that collaboration between industries had drawn a variety of interesting individuals to get involved in Design Week.

“In our main talk that we’re doing on Saturday, we have this intersection of what and how an architect is approaching design in plain sight, how an informational designer, someone who designs signage and wayfinding, interacts, and how their work is in plain sight,” she said.

“Then also visual merchandiser at IKEA, which, you know, everyone has been to IKEA, and so it’s all trying to make it a bit relatable, and things that make sense for how people you know just kind of move through their days.”

She said that people movement also extended to civic engagement.

“Civic design is another piece of this urban planning architecture, and why cities are built the way they are. We’re hoping that people will start to be like, ‘oh, like, I can have a voice in how my city is built. I can engage with my councillor and talk to them about these things.’ I think that those are really important conversations that people can have,” she said.

That sentiment was echoed by Mayor Jyoti Gondek, who said that getting people to come together to talk about creating an equitable and sustainable society was a good thing for Calgary.

“Those things matter. I keep saying this matters. It matters to assemble a group of people in this room who care so much about this city and want it to be beautiful and want it to be functional. Design is also about how people interact with their city,” the mayor said.

“Design matters. It matters in terms of what you’re seeing when you’re out for a walk. It matters in terms of your home. It matters in terms of what you’re wearing. It just signifies that we love beautiful things, and we can’t ever discount that.”

For more details on talks and to register for Design Week events, see www.designweekcalgary.com/events.