Cincinnati Design Week has come a long way since we first threw the idea around during a board meeting in 2012. We had heard of the idea of having a full week dedicated to design, but we weren’t sure if we were able to pull off 5 consecutive days of events. We had experience with Design Revival, which is a 3 day conference, so we thought making 5 days of events might be possible.

In our first design week in 2012, we had seven events in five days. That in itself was a pretty lofty goal, especially for our first time around. That year we crammed in everything from a how to transition to web talk, a social media discussion panel, and an agency crawl all in the same week. Our first design week speaker list included Dr. Victor Garcia, Justine Arreche, and even Nathan Hendricks, Chief Creative Officer of LPK. Not too bad for our first stab at design week.

Oh, how times have changed.

We just wrapped up our 4th Annual Cincinnati Design Week. In a few short years, we grew from having seven events in five days to having seventeen events in seven days. In those few short years we’ve brought in Aaron Draplin, Debbie Millman, and now Brian Singer as keynote speakers to end our week in style.

A sold out, standing room only event with Brian Singer on Friday evening as he talks about how he got rich in design, but not in the traditional sense.

In those few short years, the number of partnerships we’ve built has grown immensely. These relationships helped solidify Cincinnati Design Week as the coming together of the design community in our city. This year alone, not only did we partner with agencies (both traditional and digital) and startups such as RDG, BLDG, Differential, Kapture, and Spicefire, but we also partnered with some great organizations like Girl Develop It, SEGD and AIA. We even teamed up with some other talks and conferences in our community, like CreativeMornings, The Cincinnati Design Awards, ProductCamp, and the world renowned OFFF conference. This year, everyone came together under the common goal of bringing together the Cincinnati creative community, and leaving them inspired.

Coffee panel talk featuring teach leaders from GitHub, Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, Zebra Technologies, and Rockfish. The talk was presented by our very own WomanUp Women’s Leadership Initiative and Girl Develop It.

In those few short years, AIGA Cincinnati went from hosting a little over 300 attendees throughout the week to inspiring over 1,400 people throughout the week.

In those few short years, AIGA Cincinnati has established Cincinnati Design Week as a design week that is known across the nation, a design week that helps unite a thriving creative community, and a design week that has only just begun to flourish. A design week that we couldn’t make happen without all of you.

Together we can do amazing things: aiga.org/belong

Banners of the breweries that were represented during our panel talk featuring the designers that created our favorite beers/bottles and a beer tasting. The event was presented by RDG and Lemongrenade.

The interactive collaboration piece at Distort The Panel, an interactive art installation and party.

The break out workshops at the Designing the Future event. The event was presented by Spicefire.

One of the winners from our very first Drink & Draw event.