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California Changing: An Augmented Reality Poster Collection

Please join us for a pop-up exhibition of augmented reality posters that are focused on sites across California through the lens of climate change. The posters use an AR component to showcase the past, present, and potential futures of these sites, and are viewable through your mobile phone. Selected posters will also be available as

Self-guided: Mural Hunt by 1am Murals

Adventure out into the neighborhoods listed on our map, in between events or on your own time. Gather a group of friends, or wander on your own by following the clues to find the murals in the first of our series of self-guided tours of San Francisco Murals. Once you find a mural on the

A Rollercoaster Ride: A Design x Venture Panel with Founders & Funders

Hear from founders, funders, and design executives at some of the most exciting startups and funds in the Bay Area in an exciting fireside chat. Panelists: Jane Ha, Head of Design, Incredible Health Karine Sarkissian, Founding Partner at Tamar Capital x Le Studio Koraldo Kajanaku, CEO & Cofounder, Layer Editor Rachel Poonsiriwong, Product Design Lead,

Benefits of a rebrand with Mission Bit – VIRTUAL EVENT

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Mission Bit supports underrepresented youth of color in tech. Over the last 10 years, it has experienced exponential growth. As part of its ongoing commitment to positively impacting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the field of design, independent creative agency Sans Serif partnered with Mission Bit in 2022 to introduce a rebrand. Mission Bit

How AI can help us express ourselves

Join us for a lively discussion between Henri Liriani, Co-founder and CPO of Tome and Kathleen Chaykowski, Head of Integrated Comms about how AI can help us express ourselves. TOME: Our mission is to help anyone tell a compelling story. We're building an AI-native storytelling format for work and ideas. A collaborative AI partner,
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HCI: Human Connection Interaction

Leave your titles at the door, and arrive with curiosity in your heart. This gathering is a chance to get to know each other for who you really are without your job title, achievements, accomplishments, or other markers of status and success. First names only. No job titles or company names. For one hour, you'll

$25.00

The Artist’s Anxieties How creatives can survive (and thrive) in the AI Revolution

Is AI the new artist? Instead of answering that question, creative coach, entrepreneur and art collector Sonya Yu discusses what’s lost during the creative process when generative computers replace human hands, hearts, and minds—and how creatives can move from a place of anxiety to empowerment in the nascent AI revolution. If you are an artist

DESIGN 101 – Design basics for novices

High school students, community college students, and anyone else interested in design are invited to DESIGN 101, a 3-hour workshop where participants will explore the principles of design through a hands-on session. The activities of this workshop include creating zines, buttons, and packaging. DESIGN 101 will start with a brief introduction to design principles followed

In conversation with Galanter & Jones

Join us for a unique, intimate setting: imagine only 20 coveted spots on the couch in conversation with Co-Founders Miranda and Aaron Jones to discuss running a design business, innovation in furniture, manufacturing, challenges and successes. This event will take place in a small group setting. ABOUT: Galanter & Jones is a design + fabrication

Agents of Change: Ben Davis of Illuminate/City of Awe

Join us for the first in our new series Agents of Change: an inspiring presentation by Ben Davis, founder of Illuminate and producer of projects such as City of Awe, The Bay Lights, Honoring Harvey Milk, The Golden Mile, The Pink Triangle, Pi in the Sky and more art light installations around the city. Boom.

Break it Until you Make It! The Egg Drop Challenge Using Sustainable Materials

Participants of all ages and walks of life will experience techniques of design and arts through hands-on activities using simple tools and sustainable, recyclable, reused materials (provided by the organizing team). The participants will be divided into teams; each team will be challenged to devise a way to prevent an egg from breaking when dropped

De.Coded. Creating a Human Atlas of Silicon Valley with Studio Sutherl&

Join us for a talk by Jim Sutherland of Studio Sutherl& in the UK. Human Atlas is a social-impact art platform founded by artist Marcus Lyon. Mapping community through oral history, portraits and ancestral DNA. Inspiring the next generation of change. Human Atlas projects are research-based, interdisciplinary explorations of the people of a specified geography.

Breaking Through Creative Blocks: Small Group Workshop

What do artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs have in common? It’s two things: extreme imagination and sometimes extreme doubt. In this small workshop, creative and executive coach Sonya Yu will help individuals break through their current doubts, fears and blocks to better actualize their visions and feel empowered on their chosen paths. Calling all artists, creatives,

Official Launch Party and Musical Performance: Storytelling with Designers Everett Katigbak and Paula Marengo

Join us for an evening of music and storytelling with a musical ensemble comprised of designers. In between songs, you'll hear stories and conversations about design passions and side hustles between Everett Katigbak (currently the first Creative hire at Anthropic, and former Executive Producer and Designer at Stripe, Pinterest, and Facebook) and Paula Marengo, designer

Climate Action (Design) Bootcamp: Designing Climate-Focused Products, Services & Business Models

Virtual Event Hybrid Event

Workshop Description: Climate change is the most significant challenge facing our world today, and there is an urgent need for innovative solutions that reduce its impacts while repairing our world. In this 2-hour workshop, participants will learn how to design climate-resilient products, services, and business models, ensuring their ventures are aligned with the global goal

Wiki Art Jam

What does it take to be “The Last Best Place on the Internet”? While billions of people read Wikipedia every day, most are unaware of or do not understand the massive collaboration happening behind the scenes, involving people and machines. This collaboration is what allows Wikipedia to remain free and open source. Our vision is

Biodiversity+ Design Toolkit: Designing Pathways for Sustainable Futures – VIRTUAL EVENT

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Join us for an interactive feedback session on the Biodiversity Design Toolkit, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at empowering designers and individuals passionate about making a positive change in the world. The toolkit provides a comprehensive set of guidelines and tools to incorporate biodiversity into design, fostering more sustainable and resilient designs, communities, and ecosystems. We

Designing in the dark: how NerdWallet’s Brand Studio uses design toolkits to embrace change – VIRTUAL EVENT

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At NerdWallet, our visual designers begin most projects by creating a toolkit: visual guidelines on mood, color, type, motion, photography, and more. Balancing constraint and freedom, prescriptiveness and optionality, design toolkits help us navigate unforeseen twists and turns in development and production. What makes for a successful design toolkit, and how can they help designers

IBM Design presents… SF’s Best “Worst Design” Challenge

As designers, we strive to create products, experiences, visual, and other solutions that are useful, usable, and desirable for the intended audiences. This requires a deep knowledge of user pain points, needs, and desires…but what would happen if we use that knowledge to deliver users to their destination in the most frustrating way possible? In

Designing through a Merger or Acquisition

As a product ecosystem expands from its first product offering to a suite of interconnected products, the design team often scales and forms subteams within the larger design organization. With this additional organizational and product complexity, it becomes increasingly difficult for designers to stay aligned on design best practices as well as interaction and visual

Designing for Climate

Know what would be the ultimate plot twist? If enterprises across the globe went from key contributors to climate change, to critical drivers in halting the climate crisis. That's our goal at Watershed - to create software that empowers companies to cut their carbon emissions. The Watershed design team is thrilled to host a discussion

Creating Beauty

This event will focus on the story of Tina's personal journey from a childhood of creativity to an initial career in finance, leaving it all behind to start her own design company — hiccups along the way, and refinding inspiration to create beauty. TF Design is a creative product design studio and workshop based in

Potato – Open Studio

Join us POTATO for a talk and mingle to celebrate SFDW 2023! Change is an inevitable part of life, plot twists as some call it --- and it’s especially true in the world of product development and design. Whether it’s new technologies, shifting customer needs, or evolving market trends, change is constantly reshaping the landscape

Guacamole Airplane Open Studio

We invite you to visit the sustainable packaging design studio of Guacamole Airplane. Local Plastic from Bend Oregon will be on hand exhibiting recent developments with their recycled plastic sheet press, used to create furniture and home goods. Located at our studio in Sausalito on Gate 5 Road, you will have the opportunity to explore

Aruliden – Open Studio

Aruliden welcomes the entire Bay Area to join us at our house warming party to celebrate our new expanded studio with Material+ in Oakland, California. To jumpstart the event, the team will do introductions and speak towards the history and vision of the studio. (4PM-4:30PM). Our space will be set up to display some of

Revolution Road: Designing a Driverless Future

When the first automobile took to the streets, no one could have predicted a day in which the driver would be optional. That time is now. Our team is designing the new era of transportation on our city streets, and we would love to talk to our fellow designers about it. Come meet the team

Launching A Global Rebrand – Virtual Event

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In the fall of 2022 Intuit unveiled an award-winning new visual identity to the world, but it was far from an overnight success. Learn the story of how the Intuit Brand Design team and Moniker SF lead a holistic brand refresh from the first plans a year prior, through the design process, and onward to

Elixir Design – Open Studio

Elixir Open House Come celebrate 30 years with us! Our studio will be fully transformed into a wonder cabinet of projects, designs, colors, knick- knacks and unique commodities we have inherited through the years. We intend to make this an interactive experience-- so come ready to explore and even partake in some hands-on activities! We

FYRN – Open Studio

Stop by Fyrn to see our pieces in-person + have a tour through our original manufacturing facility. We’ll have drinks, bites and music for mingling and chatting. Look forward to hosting you!

Enlisted Design Open Studio

Enlisted welcomes all design enthusiasts to join our open studio for a Next Level experience featuring interactive workshops, live design demos and product showcases. From 7-7:45pm, we are proud to feature renowned designer, thinker & author, Donald Burlock, Jr. as a keynote speaker for a discussion about his book: Super Human by Design: Keys to

Radical Care: Design x Health Skyside Panel with Blumline

A cultural shift is underway and it’s shaking up healthcare. Join Blumline for a skyside panel conversation on health, agency, access, and designing with and for this unique space. We'll discuss emerging behaviors, needs, and the challenges, experiments, and lessons our panelists have uncovered in practicing health-centered design. Come early for aperitivo, a beautiful and

Jam Session by frog Design: Co-Creating a Code of Ethics in AI & Other Rising Technologies

During this 90-minute session, we want to bring creatives, technologists and forward-thinkers together to co-create a code of ethics around the increasingly ubiquitous, and intelligent technologies that are making their way into our day to day worlds. At this pivotal moment, the rise of ChatGPT and other AI-powered products and services have illuminated countless questions

Design Rocks! Music as Design Inspiration

As designers, we’re constantly asked to create, but where does creativity come from? How can we spark new and more innovative ideas? What even IS inspiration? Let’s explore these questions together in an interdisciplinary chat about inspiration through the lens of music. With the intention to refresh your creative spirit and enliven your imagination, we’re

Risky Business: Climate Change, Design, and Avoiding Unforeseen Consequences

Risky Business: Climate Change, Design, and Avoiding Unforeseen Consequences Throughout human history, new tools and technologies have simultaneously moved us forward as a society and set us back with unforeseen consequences. Here in the Bay Area, there is a common desire to disrupt, move fast, and break things, but that approach is not valid for

Adobe: Creating Gen AI Tools with and for Designers

Join members of the Adobe Design and Adobe Design Research & Strategy teams for a very special event for a very special event, in conversation with local designers about the design process behind Adobe's Gen AI tools. Panelists will discuss how they're currently using AI in their design workflows, touch upon what's ahead, and talk

Twist and Transform: Exploring Future Concepts and Career Pathways

Virtual Event Hybrid Event

Join us this evening as we dive into the unique journey of our designers and the impact of emerging technologies. ACTIVITY: Generating and Visualizing Future Concepts @Labs x Song An expanse of generative tools are now among us, so are the many questions and worries surrounding the future of the designer in the design process.

Us vs. Them

Join PA San Francisco (formerly Astro Studios) at SF Design Week for a thought-provoking event that explores the intersection of AI technology and design. Attendees will experience a competition between human designers and AI tools, and explore a showcase of AI technology and interactive events that demonstrate the latest trends in design. Refreshments and swag

Illustrating the picture book

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Illustrating a picture book from script to final pages - with focus on character design, composition and page design -- presentation followed by Live Q and A.

Moving Pictures: How Indie Film “Marcie’s” Was Made – VIRTUAL EVENT

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Marcie has a dream: to own Ed’s Tavern, where she’s bartender and den mother to her community of regular folk. But when a developer and an endangered bird begin to unravel her plans, Marcie has to rally her people to prevent the loss of the Tavern and save the community. This independent film touches on