Design Week South Africa has announced the 2025 dates, marking the second year of this annual series of activations. Happening in both Johannesburg and Cape Town in October, city-wide pop-ups will ignite both cities, encouraging design-lovers, thought-leaders, students and the general public to engage with their city in a new way.
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This year Design Week South Africa will be supported by the V&A Waterfront’s Watershed, Cape Town’s vibrant craft and design space, open daily to visitors of the V&A Waterfront.
Partnering on launch dinners, exclusive exhibitions and discussions, by supporting Design Week South Africa, The Watershed demonstrates its investment in the South African creative economy.
The British Council will be supporting an international project, ‘Field Hospital’, presented by artist Andrew Merritt and aided by Loubie Rusch. This transdisciplinary project has been activated in the United Kingdom and Mexico, with the third land restoration zone being in South Africa.
Design Week South Africa is proud to partner with the African International Design Awards (AIDA), the first international awards celebrating the creativity and forward-thinking design across the Africa continent.
What to expect
Four days of activations, events, workshops, tours and discussions will take place in each city. Highlights include launches from TONIC, Curacion x UNI FORM, FIELDS and Hoi P’loy, an interactive listening room by Andile Buka (supported by Bang & Olufsen), an inner-city multi-disciplinary exhibition ‘Price of Gold’ by Joburg collective Intima Studios, a partnership with Garden Day at Victoria Yards, an exclusive exhibition in collaboration with 54 Mag, and city-wide custom zine stands, made from waste by Wunders, showcasing the latest in South African design-related zines.
‘Myself and the team were blown away last year by the incredible standard of activation across both cities. We were left with a feeling of great optimism and pride in our local design sectors, and we can’t wait to see what the industry has to offer the public, media and fellow design industry members this year,’ comments Margot Molyneux, Founder of Design Week South Africa.
Design Week South Africa will also launch the Design Directory, a national platform created to spotlight South African designers and creative professionals, and foster greater visibility, collaboration and economic opportunity within the country’s thriving design ecosystem.
This innovative, open-access directory aims to be a centralised resource for discovering and connecting with designers across disciplines — from fashion, architecture and product design to illustration, and digital innovation. The platform is available to both established and emerging talent for an annual fee, with exceptions made in cases where a brand is unable to cover the cost.
‘The Design Directory is a natural extension of our mission at Design Week South Africa: to champion local design, elevate creative voices and build a more connected, sustainable design economy,’ says Margot. ‘We’re building a space where designers are not just seen, but engaged with, commissioned and celebrated.’
Design Week South Africa 2025 is curated by South Africans passionate about this country’s design sectors, the creative economy and growing pride and acknowledgement of South African and, more broadly African, design.
The core team comprises Margot Molyneux, Zanele Khumalo, Roland Postma and Simone Schultz, while a broader advisory team, including local and international industry leaders, has also been formed, with members announcedlater this month.
