About

Melbourne Design Week (MDW) celebrates design in an annual 11-day program of talks, tours, exhibitions, launches, installations, and workshops across Australia’s design capital. The program is driven by ideas through providing a platform for designers, educators, enthusiasts, thinkers, and businesses to come together to share these ideas, show and sell new work, and consider how design can be used as a force for good in an increasingly complex and precarious world. In 2025, MDW occurs during 15-25 May.

MDW takes place across ateliers, studios, retail spaces, universities, galleries, gardens and public spaces throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria. Participation in the satellite program is via an expression-of-interest. The democratic access to participation and attendance in the program has enabled MDW to cultivate an international reputation for promoting design discourse, fostering critical thinking, and encouraging Australia’s design sector to embrace their moral responsibility and professional capability to shape the future collaboratively. Additionally, this approach has built capacity within the design sector by supporting both emerging and established designers.

Melbourne Design Week is an initiative of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. Since 2017 the program has grown in scope and scale from just under 100 programs in 2017 to over 400 in 2024. Over 100,000 people attended the 2024 festival making it Australia’s leading and largest design event.

The 2024 iteration of Melbourne Design Week also cemented the festival as a key design event in the Asia-Pacific region. In terms of scale the festival is now on par with international programs such as Paris Design Week (around 300 events; 60,000 visitors), Shanghai Design Week (around 350 events; 90,000 visitors), New York Design Week (around 300 events; 90,000 visitors) and Dubai Design Week (around 350 events; 90,000 visitors).

Presentations that have premiered in Melbourne Design Week have gone on to be recognised nationally and internationally, including through the Créateur Design Awards, Dezeen Awards, Designers Australia Awards, Victorian Premier Design Awards. and the Australian Institute of Architects Awards program.