Insider Guide to SF Design Week

San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is almost here! Join global creatives and aesthetes at the June 4 opening party to kick off ten days celebrating the Bay Area’s singular intersection of ideas, design, business, and entrepreneurship. 

This year marks SFDW’s 18th Edition, themed Attention: Commanding and Controlling a Precious Commodity—a concept conceived by SF’s Pact Studio.

From Anthropic’s AI event to touring Ken Fulk’s Magic Factory, Dawn Zidonis, CEO of San Francisco Design Week (and Co-founder and CEO of DesignBayArea), shares her insider’s guide to SFDW—much of which is walkable from CANOPY locations.

What is San Francisco Design Week? 

Now a global phenomenon, San Francisco’s international success is born from a historically free-spirited entrepreneurialism coupled with the imaginative vision of contemporary design and state-of-the-art technology. As pioneers of new ways of looking at the world, agile Bay Area startups are now among the world’s most influential design-led companies, producing products, services, and experiences that profoundly influence the daily lives of billions of people globally.

Through studio tours and events, SFDW celebrates this spirit of newness by providing unique access to exhibitions and conversations with the designers shaping the future—from architecture to fashion, product design to digital services, and everything in between.

What exciting trends should people pay attention to this year?

AI is, of course, a hot topic at this year’s event, and we’re looking forward to the startup Anthropic’s event with Everett Katigbak because of its singular approach to AI. We’re also seeing a lot about Regenerative Design, materials and Circular Design.

We’re also seeing a return to focusing on more makers and artists. This year, we’re highlighting Bay Area Made, a quintessential annual participant in San Francisco Design Week because it shines a light on the local small businesses in the region. 

Tell us how studio crawls take attendees behind the scenes at SF’s creative studios. 

You can go behind the scenes to local studios, meet their design teams, and have fun “crawling” from place to place on the evenings of June 11 and June 12 to learn more about trends and culture in the Bay Area design community. Most are walkable from CANOPY locations. The studio crawls are an annual highlight because they are energetic and fun and take place at the end of the festival, after we’ve learned so many new things and been inspired by local events. Join us as we head out with friends to bounce around from studio to studio in a celebratory way!

Do you have any events you highly recommend?

Too many to count! Our program is carefully curated so I can recommend everything to anyone. Here are some notable options that reflect the breadth and diversity of this year’s events.

  • AI with Anthropic: Everett Katigbak
    Join us for an engaging AI conversation with Everett Katigbak, the first brand hire at Anthropic, hosted by DesignBayArea. Everett is a storyteller, filmmaker, creative director, and musician living in San Francisco. He was an early-stage designer at prominent companies like Pinterest, Stripe and Facebook, and was co-founder of Facebook’s former Analog Research Lab.
  • Dynamic Minds: Creative Brilliance Seminar Series | KEN FULK Studio: St. Joseph’s Arts Society
    Best-selling author Diane Dorrans Saeks leads a studio visit at the Magic Factory headquarters of lauded SF interior designer Ken Fulk. Attendees will then join Martin Strickland, the new director of St Joseph’s Arts Society, on a tour through this studio, atelier, and entertainment place set within a restored church in SOMA. The visit will explore the restoration, re-design, and re-purpose of this historic structure—a lavish site for discussions on design, altruism, and philanthropy—and the Julian Lennon photography exhibit.
  • Begin with the End with Prowl Studio
    Instead of asking how we can do “less bad,” we ask how we can do “the most good.” To that end, we begin with the end—to fully understand what the next life of each product, material, or space we design could become. We expect an afterlife that gives equal weight to design and its regeneration.
  • Curating Curiosity: How Technology Engages Us with Art
    Join Cheng Xu, an artist and engineer who creates tools for facilitating self-expression, as she reflects on her recent transition into a curatorial practice, overseeing games and tech at the Asian Art Museum. Watch voices take shape, strangers make eye contact, and museum visitors attempt to sandwalk, all by the magic wand of tech. Cheng will share insights about technology’s role in the context of a contemporary museum and its potential to spark curiosity, encourage creativity, and engender deep reflection on our society.
  • Attend to _____.
    The attention economy has you. Your focus is being monetized every minute of every day. The only escape is to slow down, put away the social media, and place your focus on ____. What should you attend to? Find the answer at frog, a leading global creative consultancy and part of Capgemini Invent, and enjoy intelligent design conversations over cocktails and eclectic beats.
  • Rafi Ajl at The Future Perfect
    Experience the work of Rafi Ajl at The Future Perfect (3085 Sacramento Street) beginning June 7. Ajl is a Berkeley-based artist who is obsessed with form and process. He is driven by the possibilities of materiality, an insatiable curiosity, and an undisputed reverence for the pressures of the creative process.
  • Design Week Open House with Letterform Archive
    Where does your design inspiration come from? Maybe it’s time to get off the internet and into the library! Letterform Archive holds one of the world’s best collections of graphic design and typography artifacts. We’re welcoming the Design Week community for bites, drinks, and a peek into the Archive.
  • Attention: A Design x Venture Panel with Founders & Funders
    In an exciting fireside chat, hear from founders, funders, and design executives at some of the most exciting startups and funds in the Bay Area.
    Panelists:

How can design lovers get involved?

Purchase a OnePass (from $99) to attend and register for events! Your Account Dashboard will show a Calendar of Events and On Demand Content and enable you to register for individual happenings. Don’t wait—most sell out before the festival begins! Use the code CANOPY82F9PASS24 to receive $30 off.

While the deadline to host an event has passed, you can join our mailing list to receive details ahead of SFDW 2025. We also welcome applications for DesignSites listings—a showcase of exhibitions and design-savvy businesses in the Bay Area that support SFDW. DesignSites also highlights local retail shops, restaurants, exhibitions, installations, and public art, proving San Francisco is one of the world’s preeminent design-driven cities. Fill out an application for your business here; refer your favorite design-forward locations here.

**

Follow Dawn and her teams on socials!