Tallinn Design Festival 2025: DESIGN FOR ALL

Tallinn Design Festival (TDF) celebrates its 20th anniversary with a wide-ranging programme under the slogan ‘Design for All’. During the festival week, there will be nearly a hundred diverse events, many exploring how design can enrich everyone’s lives, creating a world where design based on caring and humanity is the norm, not the exception. The festival’s mission is to make design less abstract and more understandable, inclusive and accessible.

TDF demonstrates the impact of inclusive design, where each person’s unique needs and experiences are at the heart of every decision. True inclusive design is guided by a philosophy that encourages us to think about how size, shape, age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, education, income, culture and customs, and even diet, shape our interactions with the world around us. More importantly, we need to consider this insight when designing products and services.

The festival is based on four pillars: talks-exhibitions on design success stories for experts and enthusiasts; community-engaging events; a diverse satellite program; and design commerce. TDF values the opportunity to blend historical industrial architecture with modern lifestyle and design for selecting its venues. For the third time the festival will take place in the unique Krulli Quarter.

The most important event of the festival is the Design Forum ‘Design for All: Celebrating Diversity, Creating Equality,’ featuring internationally recognised design experts such as Patricia Moore (USA), Rama Gheerawo (UK tbc), and accessibility experts from Norway, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and Estonia. The conference is organised in cooperation with EIDD – Design For All Europe and The Estonian Chamber of Disabled People.

Inclusive design is also an important issue in Estonia, due to the rapidly ageing society and the growing number of older people. In collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Design Anthropology project will be carried out to find functioning universal design solutions and methodologies in Krulli. Design schools’ area will take its usual place: this time, in addition to local ones, with the Vilnius Academy of Arts (tbc), and counterparts from the US and Mexico. Collaboration will also continue with Arts Thread, a global platform whose ‘Design Graduate Show’ gives graduates the opportunity to showcase their ideas and find potential partners. The International Haapsalu Graphic Design Festival will showcase the best of this year’s posters.

Rising in popularity, the INTERIOR+ area is where interior designers showcase their work. Together with the Estonian Association of Landscape Architects, we will also focus on outdoor design. While INTERIOR+ will be open the whole week, the Design Street starts on the weekend, with a special focus on creatives who will be able to show and sell their latest creations.

Alongside the exhibitions and the forum, there’ll be a number of events for exchange, socialising and networking: such as the thematic opening party of the anniversary festival, the PechaKucha lightning talks, workshops, a light installation area and a KidZone. One of the main events of the festival – DOM sustainable fashion and clothing design show – will bring the story of local brands to the stage in the form of a conceptual spectacle. The weekend will see a party in Krulli!

Every year, dozens of satellites are included in the festival’s subprogram across the city and, where possible, outside Tallinn. The goal is to popularise design and give creatives, museums, and galleries the opportunity to showcase their work and exhibitions.

The International Tallinn Design Festival is an excellent place for inspiration and new knowledge, for relaxed networking with like-minded people and for finding new partners.