Its story starts in 2013, when the Cape Town Design Network decided that the Mother City needed a design festival that would not only do away with the elite stigma of design, but also gave anybody interested in design an accessible and inclusive platform to showcase, demonstrate and share their design.

Together with the City of Cape Town, CCDI and the WFCI, Open Design was born and with it, an event that sparked the creative imagination of Cape Town.

It only seemed fitting to theme the event “Design is for Sharing” because in four simple words, it captured the essence of what Open Design was at its core. And did Cape Town share? You bet they did!

From the 21-31 August 2013, across 38 venues throughout Cape Town, people shared their design at 81 events including 12 anchor events at the Cape Town City Hall, the hub of creativity. Over 5 800 people joined us the City Hall and almost another 2000 all around Cape Town. We even had a few events break records for attendance including Pecha Kucha Cape Town, Creative Morning Cape Town and the first even Open Architectural Studios.

What all of this told us is that the public needed an event and platform Open Design Cape Town and with 2014 as World Design Capital – it’s going to be big!

We can’t let on to too much, other than 2014 will see an extension in dates from 10 – 30 August along with a number of new platforms through which creative minds can shine. With media attention turning to Cape Town, Open Design Cape Town 2014 will be bigger and better, a through-the-year platform for everybody to engage with.

So the question is: What will you be sharing next year?