Toronto, Canada, 2020-01-22 -  DesignTO kicked off the Festival’s 10th Anniversary Friday, January 17th with the 'DesignTO Launch Party' at the historic Berkeley Church. Going into its 10th year, DesignTO is about creativity, community, and experimentation. Since 2011, DesignTO has been bringing communities together to celebrate design, by taking art and design out of the studio and into the urban realm. Featuring the work of hundreds of designers each year, the Festival showcases locally made furniture, lighting, products, graphic and experiential design, interiors and architecture, accessories, ceramics, and more. As a non-profit arts organization, the festival emphasizes collaboration and the expression of personal values and identities through the creative process.

DesignTO’s 10th year will see over 100 events, exhibitions, and installation across the city of Toronto with the return of some amazing staples including the half-day symposium on a future without work with a keynote by Carol Anne Hilton, CEO and Founder of The Indigenomics Institute; a multidisciplinary thematic exhibition ‘Future Retrospectives’ exploring how the past influences the future; a prototype exhibition ‘Work/Life’; several student exhibitions at OCAD University; site-specific installations; and open studios.

New programming includes a dinner of local design, DesignTO Tours of a 235,000 square feet custom fabrication workshop, and a trip to Canada’s first suburb to talk about intensification through retail, plus DesignTO Talks with Toronto studios Anony and Castor, Mexico-based studio Anagrama interviewed by Monocle, and Berlin-based design and architecture collective They Feed Off Buildings who create terrazzo using debris from demolished buildings. The Globe and Mail and EQ3 celebrate Designing Canada: a new annual recognition of the best in Canadian design, author Randi Bergman talks to local makers featured in the recently released ‘Toronto Makes’ book, and the Toronto Society of Architects discuss the climate crisis at an Urban Affairs Forum. DesignTO also launches its first youth-focused program, with animations created by Oasis Skateboard Factory students.

Read more about DesignTO and see the full Festival Schedule at designto.org.

About DesignTO
Since its inception in 2011, DesignTO has seen over half a million visitors and welcomed 90,000 tourists, which has generated over $19 million in tourism revenue for the province of Ontario, its designers and business owners. Over the last nine years, the Festival has transformed the city of Toronto into a hub for creativity, taking art and design out of the studio and into the urban sphere featuring the work of nearly 4,000 artists and designers, and hosting over 650 exhibitions and events in many neighbourhoods and spaces. By bringing people together to celebrate contemporary culture, DesignTO provides opportunities for emerging talent and engages the community with exceptional and accessible public programming, in the middle of winter!