Design Month Graz 2021

Awareness & Location

The annual Design Month Graz, organized by Creative Industries Styria, provides a stage for the versatile range of services of the creative sector. Cancelled in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Design Month Graz 2021 was able to return this year with the program focus “Better Future”.

On May 7, 2021, the opening of the Design Month Graz was streamed online from the “Fantastic Plastic” exhibition. It was the first major festival in Graz after many months plagued with lockdowns, cancellations, postponements and closures. The program focus of the Design Month Graz 2021, “Better Future”, explored the question of what designers can contribute to creating a better future. Better Future was the common thread running through the numerous formats that Design Month Graz brought to the stage, from exhibitions and small events to lectures.

The “Fantastic Plastic” exhibition, a cooperation with the Moscow Design Museum, presented products from international design labels that used

Awareness & Location

plastic as a raw material. “SUREAL. Sustainable Responsive Art Lab” explored the sustainable design of the Merkur Campus in the designforum Steiermark. Thus, as part of the Design Month Graz 2021, experts asked what design can do, and more specifically, what designers could contribute to tackling the great challenges of our time. Answers were provided by “Redesign the Future”, an online symposium including three panels with international experts. Numerous other events, happenings and exhibitions rounded off the program, such as the Design Battle, the exhibition “4th Block”, the Climate Culture Pavilion on Freiheitsplatz or the Material Loops exhibition at Haus der Architektur. Ninety partners were involved in the program, making the topic of design accessible to a broader public with lectures, workshops, exhibitions and conferences. Design Month Graz 2021 appeared in 200 media reports in print, TV, radio and online.

Impulses & Projects

Innovation needs inspiration. In other words: Be inspired!

Networking and creating synergies: The core task of Creative Industries Styria is to connect the creative with the traditional economy. This results in new and innovative products from a wide variety of industries.

The transformative power of creative work is firmly rooted in the “Austrian Creative Economy Strategy” of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs as one of its key points. And there is a good reason for that: Creative industries provide strong impulses to the traditional economy and thus ensure innovation and progress. Creative Industries Styria has made it their business to enhance these impulses and connect the right players. The numerous B2B projects make these impulses clearly visible. In that respect, Design Transfer is a flagship project. It offers companies a road map showing how design can open up new perspectives in business and how concrete products and services emerge. The results are not simply marketable products, but rather an enhancement of the business location Styria as a whole, a strengthening of Graz's image as a UNESCO City of Design and secure jobs.