The theme for Design Week Calgary 2026 is ‘In Tune’ where organizers are asking people to notice the rhythms of the city around them through sounds, spaces, even people and to find the harmony within them. It’s a celebration of the creative talent in Calgary’s design community. “Design Week is a festival that’s meant to highlight the best and the brightest of creatives in our city,” said Shannon Lanigan, Design Week Calgary director. “Calgary has a booming ecosystem in the creative industry and we felt that it was time to really begin highlighting that and so we wanted to create a festival that was meant to inspire, to delight, to kind of get people excited about design in our city.” Lanigan says the Aug. 6 through 9 festival is in its second year that saw more than 3,200 visitors in 2025. The event features a diverse range of talks, workshops, exhibitions, studio tours, installations, screening, pop-ups and social gatherings. The festival is open to designers, organizations, student and the public with a focus on how design impacts every day life. “There’s architecture firms that are doing tours, there’s design and build studios that are showing what could be a potential project,” she said. “There’s fashion designers that are putting on a fashion show so it’s kind of a little bit of everything, we’re hoping to engage people in ways that are new and exciting and interesting.” Lanigan would like to see design approachable to everyone and to feel like they can engage and participate in it because she says design is for everyone. “We have some of the best schools of design, I would argue, in the world right here in our city,” she said. “We have Bow Valley College, we have Mount Royal University, and we have AU Arts and they’re all producing really world class talent out of those schools.” Organizers say design is that one element in life that is all around us. “I often say the pen that you write with is designed, the phone that you use is designed and I think that was why we wanted to do a very public festival to celebrate design and to celebrate the designers and the creatives in our city,” said Lanigan. Samantha Vandal is an AU Arts student who proposed a fashion show for the festival and is putting it together from scratch at Contemporary Calgary. “I started out as a graphic designer and now I’m a fashion designer,” she said. “I’ve also dabbled in animation as well, which is my core major, the crossover has been so interesting and how all of the different multifaceted types of art come together to create a fashion show.” Tracey Conn is an interior designer who uses nature in much of her work. She’s become a nature therapy guide and is hosting nature walks for the festival. “Rather than just a typical walk where we have our headphones on and we’re just ignoring everything around us,” she said. “It’s actually engaging with what we’re seeing and smelling and hearing in nature and just connecting with nature, but also reconnecting with ourselves in that process.” Learn more about Design Week Calgary here.
