Design Manchester

Design Manchester Design Manchester is a ten day festival, celebrating creativity, collaboration and longevity in art, design, illustration, animation and photography.

Design Manchester’s annual festival celebrates collaboration and inclusivity in design, producing international level events that champion the worlds of design, art, architecture, digital, illustration, film, animation, photography and music. Design Manchester was established in 2013 with the support of Manchester School of Art, part of Manchester Metropolitan University, which remains a key partn

er. The first of the annual ‘DM’ festivals, DM13, took place in October 2013, which was the 175th anniversary year of Manchester School of Art and timed to co-incide with the official opening of the Stirling Prize Nominated Benzie Building. Design Manchester supports and promotes design thinking and practice in and from one of the world’s great design cities with a range of programmes and events in Manchester and elsewhere. Last year, DM15 was visited by 21,000 people, with 17 events, a rich programme of talks, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, debates and a full weekend celebrating the love of print. DM15 featured IDEO, Territory Studio, Ben Terrett, Debbie Gray (Genesius Pictures), Hudson Powell, Lou Cordwell (magneticNorth) Stephen Morris (New Order), Malika Favre, Helen Musselwhite and Swifty among many more. Events and contributors in previous years have included the popular Adidas SPEZIAL exhibition, Helen Storey, John Cooper Clarke, Kate Moross, Mark Kennedy, Nat Hunter, Liam Hopkins (LAZARIAN), Daren Newman, Adrian Shaughnessy, Rejane Dal Bello, Supermundane’s Rob Lowe, Ross Phillips and Michael C Place of Build. Design Manchester’s annual festival is curated by designers John Owens (Instruct Studio) and Malcolm Garrett RDI (Images&Co). Culture publicist Fiona McGarva of Sundae Communications is festival director and the writer Kasper de Graaf of Images&Co is the partnerships director. The Design Manchester Advisory Board is chaired by Lou Cordwell, founder and CEO of digital design agency magneticNorth and a member of the Local Enterprise Partnership. Last year’s festival, DM15, was supported by Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and Manchester School of Art, with commercial and event sponsors including G.F Smith papers, Design Week and the law firm Shoosmiths. designmcr.com



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Design Manchester was created to provide the voice of design in and connected with Manchester.

We are a not-for-profit organisation running events and programmes throughout the year. Our headline activity is DM, the annual design festival for the city, which takes place every October and is now in its fourth year.

Design Manchester was established in 2013 with the support of Manchester School of Art, part of Manchester Metropolitan University, which remains a key partner. The highlight of the first festival was a day of presentations by designers from Manchester and around the world in the Town Hall. In 2014, Design Manchester linked up with the Science Festival and also attracted thousands to an exhibition of classic trainers by adidas Spezial. That year also saw our first public design debate.

in 2016, Design Manchester’s annual festival more than doubled in size and attendance. More than 40,000 people attended 35 events over ten days, presented by 300 artists and more than 100 volunteers. Over 7,000 interactions across 3,500 Twitter and Facebook accounts gave the festival as a whole a potential reach of nearly 17 million, an increase of 400% year on year. Online and printed media carried at least 78 pieces of coverage creating 80 million opportunities to see. Creative Review, Design Week, the Manchester Evening News and Computer Arts – among many – were incredibly supportive of the festival. The events include exhibitions, showcase presentations, a film series, live performances, workshops, community programmes, a design fair and the annual debate. Download Document 15 and Document 16 to read more about what has inspired our festivals in the past two years..