PechaKucha Vancouver and Design Vancouver Festival are two distinct platforms united by one shared purpose: building community through creativity and design.
DVF is never just 11 days of events. It is more than presentations, tours, exhibitions, and gatherings. It is about people choosing to show up for one another, share ideas, open doors, and create space for connection. At its heart, Design Vancouver Festival shines a light on our local design community and makes design more accessible to everyone.
That is the soul of Design Vancouver Festival.
Where Community Begins
PechaKucha Vancouver is built around a simple format: twenty images, twenty seconds each. But the real magic has never been the format. It is what happens when someone stands in front of a room and shares something they care about, and when a community continues to show up, again and again.
One story begins another conversation, and a room full of strangers starts to feel like a community.
For 18 years, PechaKucha Vancouver has created that one-night spark. It has shown us that Vancouver is full of talented people who want to support one another, exchange ideas, and be part of something larger than their own practice.
A City Wide Invitation
Design Vancouver Festival grew from the desire to carry that energy beyond the stage and into the city.
DVF is an invitation to experience design up close: to enter a studio, walk through a building, meet the people behind the work, and see familiar streets with fresh eyes.
It brings architecture, interiors, landscape, furniture, objects, graphics, craft, and other design disciplines into one shared program. Emerging and established voices are presented side by side, with equal curiosity and care.
Vancouver does not lack talent. What it lacks is enough connective tissue.
We need more spaces where designers can meet across disciplines. More opportunities for students and emerging creatives to be seen. More public understanding of the thought, labour, materials, and decisions behind the objects we use and the places we inhabit.
We also need a stronger culture of discovering, commissioning, collecting, and supporting design made here.
What We Are Building
We are not simply building a large festival or a long list of events. We are building an ongoing cultural platform.
PechaKucha Vancouver creates moments of connection throughout the year. Design Vancouver Festival brings the community together across the city. Vancouver Creative Edition adds another layer, sharing interviews, images, and stories about the people and practices shaping Vancouver’s creative community.
Community is not built in one evening or one festival season. It grows through repeated moments of connection. It grows when people feel there is a place for them, whether they are leading an established practice, beginning their education, changing careers, or simply curious about the city around them.
Design shapes our homes, streets, public spaces, relationships, and sense of belonging.
What we make, makes the city.
Come see what we are building, and help us build what comes next.