Design

Indaba An indaba (; ) is an important conference held by the izinDuna (principal men) of the Zulu and Xhosa peoples of South Africa. (Such meetings are also practised by the Swazi, who refer to them using the close cognate '.) Indabas may include o ...

is a trademark and brand founded and run by Interactive Africa in 1995 with a focus on

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

and under the slogan "A better world through creativity". Consisting of an online publication and a series of events and creative projects, it is most widely known for its annual festival held in South Africa, in particular the flagship three-day conference hosted in Cape Town. The Design Indaba Conference is also broadcast live to various cities, most recently including

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

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Windhoek Windhoek (; ; ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek, which ...

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...

and

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. It has also been referred to as the "Conference on Creativity".

History

Design Indaba was founded with the inaugural conference in 1995, which hosted 11 speakers over two days. It has since grown to host over 30 speakers from all over the globe and has been named by many to be one of the best creative conferences in the world. In its list of top "52 Places to Go in 2014",

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

touted Design Indaba as "the annual visual arts spectacular" and part of the city's creative renaissance.

Design Indaba Festival

The Design Indaba Conference is just one part of a weeklong creative festival, known now as the Design Indaba Festival. In its entirety the Design Indaba Festival comprises the conference, a film festival, a series of exhibitions including the annual Emerging Creatives programme , and various music events and other performances. The main event takes place in Cape Town, most recently at the Artscape Theatre Centre, and various cities in Africa and Europe also host a simulcast of the conference and peripheral exhibitions and events.

Design Indaba Conference

The Design Indaba Conference has been held in Cape Town since 1995, biannually until 2001, and annually since then. Speakers at the conference represent a broad spectrum of design and the creative industries, with a focus on international thought leadership and innovative problem solving, in keeping with the company ethos of "A better world through creativity". Alongside professionals from traditional design disciplines such as

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

product design Product design is the process of creating new Product (business), products for businesses to sell to their customers. It involves the generation and development of ideas through a systematic process that leads to the creation of innovative products ...

, graphic and communication design, fashion, furniture design,

design thinking Design thinking refers to the set of Cognition, cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design prob ...

and design education, the programme of recent years has included chefs, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers and founders of creative businesses on the list of Design Indaba speakers. Together the three-day Cape Town conference and simulcast host 4,500 people.

Design Indaba Do Tank

Largely funded by the Design Indaba Trust and independent sponsorships, Design Indaba Do Tank consists of projects and initiatives designed for the greater good. These include the Your Street Challenge, the 10x10 Low-Cost Housing Project, Another Light Up, Sonop and

Arch For Arch The Arch for Arch is an architectural structure and monument located in Cape Town, South Africa, created to commemorate the life and work of Desmond Tutu. Commissioned by Design Indaba and sponsored by Liberty, its name is a play on Tutu's widely u ...

monument in honour of Archbishop

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Design Indaba's WebsiteInteractive Africa's Website
Online publishing companies Business organisations based in South Africa Conferences