By Lojain El Shawaf
Saudi Design Week was established back in 2014 by Basma and Noura Bouzo, who are also the founders of Oasis Magazine. The festival celebrates visual culture as well as design and provides other platforms a chance to showcase both regional and local design talent. The program will contain a fair amount of workshops, curated exhibitions, a design market, and a design forum.
The Saudi design week ”SDW” will be taking place in Riyadh Front in the Kingdom and the opening will be on the 5th of November in which the attendance requires an invitation while the rest of the week is open to the public, until the 9th of November. The program is divided into numerous plans which are talks, exhibitors, speakers, and workshops.
This year’s ”SDW” is about to be indulged in talent with 71 exhibitors who will be showcasing their talent from Aven, Aligatou, Binsabbar to Johara jewelry and Lemonade. Various talents will be reassuring the presence of diversity in the region.
Let’s not forget about the talks that will be held by some of the most successful names and brand owners like Sharan Sandhu the speaker of planning for sustainability: integration of sustainable design in cities, and Brendan McGetrick who will be talking about the Pursuit of Happiness. More talks that will surely be inspiring to the audience are also scheduled to take place.
Nevertheless, some of the workshops that are also going to be held include the following, Never Ending Textile Print which is all about how “participants can each make their own prints with the preventing tape and rollers. The print will build itself up, making a united big textile that can be hung later on in fair and each person’s hand mark, and their essence is there and creates a bigger unit that is a symbol of togetherness.” According to Saudi Design Week’s official website, the ticket fees are priced at 100SAR and the workshop’s duration is an hour on the 6th of November at 7:00 pm and will be given by Laura Isoniemi who is a designer and an art pedagogue.
Create A Story-Driven Character workshop is worth mentioning as “attendees will learn how to plan a character’s back story, attire, features, etc. It will also be executed in a simplistic style in which participants will also learn how to color using basic outlines and fill colors.” This workshop will be held on the 8th of November at 6:30 pm and tickets are priced at 550 SAR, and the duration of this workshop is 3 hours. The workshop will be presented by “Ahmed Alrefaie, who’s an illustrator and graphic designer from Kuwait and his artwork draws inspiration from the middle eastern cultures and traditions with a modern take.”
Saudi Design Week has grown immensely and has become one of the Kingdom’s premier design events and followed this success by exposing local design talents abroad such as London Design Biennale, Milan Design Week and Dubai Design Week.