About Business of Design Week

Business of Design Week

Business of Design Week, widely known by its acronym BODW, is Asia's premier annual event on design, innovation and brands, held in Hong Kong. Launched in 2002 and organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre, it centres on a multi-day summit of talks, forums and panels by international design masters, brand leaders and entrepreneurs, and is surrounded by exhibitions, satellite events across the city and award presentations. The Hong Kong Trade Development Council serves as co-organiser, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government's Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency, formerly known as Create Hong Kong, is the lead sponsor. Held principally at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, BODW has run every year since its launch and is described by its organiser as Asia's leading annual conference and event on design, innovation and brands. Each edition partners with a different country or city, whose designers headline the programme, and the week has become a fixed point in the calendar through which Hong Kong presents itself as an international centre of design excellence in Asia.

Origins and the Hong Kong Design Centre

Business of Design Week was launched in 2002, the same period in which its organiser took shape. The Hong Kong Design Centre is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation founded in 2001, with some accounts dating its establishment to 2002, as a strategic partner of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in establishing Hong Kong as a centre of design excellence in Asia. BODW was conceived as the centre's flagship programme, and it has remained so alongside the centre's other major initiatives. The first edition in 2002 was held under the theme Solution, before the event settled into the pattern of an annual December week built around a summit, forums, seminars, exhibitions and award presentations. From the beginning, the premise was commercial as well as cultural: the name itself, Business of Design Week, signals an event concerned with the value of design to brands, companies and economies, rather than with design as studio practice alone. That positioning distinguished BODW from purely academic design conferences and from trade fairs, and it shaped the mix of speakers the event has attracted ever since, combining practising designers with chief executives, entrepreneurs and policymakers.

The Partner Country Model

The most distinctive structural feature of Business of Design Week is its partner country or partner city model. Each year BODW forms a partnership with a different country, which is invited to bring a group of its designers to Hong Kong to give presentations at the conference and to hold exhibitions and seminars about its design culture. The partnership has in practice often extended across a full year of programming, linking BODW with the Hong Kong Design Centre's other flagship event, Knowledge of Design Week, and with exhibitions and exchanges in both directions. The recorded sequence of partners shows the breadth of the model. Scandinavia and Sweden featured in the mid-2000s, with Sweden as partner in 2004 and Scandinavia in 2005, both under the LifeStyleAsia theme. The United Kingdom partnered in 2006 under the theme Designs for Life and returned repeatedly, including as partner in 2019 and as strategic partner in 2020 and 2021. Italy partnered in 2007, again in 2017 under the theme Italy Makes a Difference, and again in 2025. France partnered in 2009 and again in 2024. Other partners have included Japan in 2010, Germany in 2011, Denmark in 2012, Belgium in 2013, Sweden again in 2014, and the Netherlands in 2022 and 2023. Switzerland was named partner for 2026, a partnership also marking ten years of an innovative strategic partnership between the Chinese mainland and Switzerland.

The Summit and Its Speakers

At the heart of Business of Design Week is the BODW Summit, also referred to as the BODW Forum, a multi-day conference at which designers give presentations and take part in keynote speeches and panel discussions. Past speakers recorded for the event include Marcel Wanders, Rem Koolhaas, Raman Hui, Rossana Hu, Richard Hutten, Zaha Hadid, Tom Dixon, Michael Young, Jimmy Choo, Sir John Sorrell, Karim Rashid, Ross Lovegrove, Marc Newson and Vivienne Tam, a list that spans architecture, product design, fashion, animation and branding. The scale of the summit in recent editions is documented for 2024, when the three-day summit held from 4 to 6 December recorded attendance totalling over 15,000 across the week, with more than 40 keynotes and panels conducted by more than 50 speakers from Hong Kong, France, the mainland and the rest of the world. The 2024 programme was organised around topics including Urban Futures, Brands and Retail Resurgence, Craftsmanship and Material Mastery, Culture and Digital Aesthetics, and AI and Future Tech. The 2025 edition, held from 3 to 6 December with Italy as partner country, was themed Curiosity Igniting Design Innovation, rendered in official reporting as Curiosity, Igniting Design Innovation, and drew over 50 designers, creative leaders, technology pioneers and representatives of cultural institutions.

Themes Through the Years

Each edition of Business of Design Week is held under a theme that frames the summit's discussions. The earliest editions used broad titles: Solution in 2002 and LifeStyleAsia across 2003 to 2005. Later themes became more specific statements about design's role. The United Kingdom partnership of 2006 used Designs for Life, the Netherlands partnership of 2008 used Open Minds, and France in 2009 used France Forward. Japan's 2010 edition was themed Lost and Found, Germany's 2011 edition Brand New Germany, Denmark's 2012 edition Design Society Denmark, Belgium's 2013 edition Belgian Spirit, and Sweden's 2014 edition Living Design: Live It, Work It, Do It. In the more recent cycle, the United Kingdom editions used Design the Future, Create Tomorrow in 2019, Vision 20/21 in 2020 and Global Design Reset in 2021. The Netherlands editions used Design for Change in 2022 and Game Changers in 2023. France's 2024 edition was themed Inter/Section: Design, Artistry and Innovation, Italy's 2025 edition Curiosity Ignites Design Innovation, and the 2026 edition with Switzerland was announced under the theme Design in Dialogue: Connect and Transform, with the summit scheduled for 16 to 21 November 2026 and six topic pillars ranging from reimagining spaces and regenerative culture to designing for longevity and future-ready transmedia and education.

The DFA Awards and the Gala Dinner

Business of Design Week is closely intertwined with the DFA Awards, the Hong Kong Design Centre's awards programme launched in 2003 to celebrate design excellence from an Asian perspective. The awards are presented during the BODW period, with the HKDC Award Gala Dinner, held as part of the week, presenting the leadership honours. The DFA Awards comprise five major programmes: the DFA Lifetime Achievement Award, the DFA Design Leadership Award, the DFA World's Outstanding Chinese Designer Award, the DFA Design for Asia Awards, and the DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award, the last established in 2005 to support Hong Kong designers and design graduates aged 35 or below. The Design for Asia Awards recognise projects with impact in Asia; the 2018 edition recognised 187 projects, and the 2019 edition recognised 211 Design for Asia Awards alongside 16 Young Design Talent Award winners. Winning projects and portfolios are showcased in a DFA Awards exhibition held alongside the week, historically at the Hong Kong Design Centre pavilion during the concurrent InnoDesignTech Expo and later at DesignInspire. In 2021 the annual DFA Awards presentation ceremony was held on 1 December at the newly opened M+ Museum. The Hong Kong Design Centre describes the DFA Awards as among the most recognised awards for design from an Asian perspective.

Satellite Events Across the City

Business of Design Week has never been confined to its convention centre summit. Around the core forum sits a constellation of satellite and concurrent programmes that spread design activity across Hong Kong. BODW in the City takes design into neighbourhoods and public-facing venues; the 2025 edition was launched by the Hong Kong Design Centre as a flagship public project alongside the summit. deTour, Hong Kong's design festival, runs as a satellite event, as does DesignInspire, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council's design exhibition, which hosts the DFA Awards exhibition and, in 2024, the Maison and Objet Design Factory curated by the Parisian trade fair Maison and Objet as a key programme of the France partnership year. Other concurrent programmes named for the 2026 edition include the GBA Creative Fortnight, the Business of IP Asia Forum, a Leadership Forum, the anniversary event of the DX design hub, and the broader DESIGN@HKG citywide activation through which the Hong Kong Design Centre stages design programmes each November and December. The effect is that BODW functions as an umbrella week: a business summit at its centre, with public exhibitions, festivals and industry forums radiating outward.

Knowledge of Design Week and bodw+

Two related platforms extend Business of Design Week beyond its December slot. Knowledge of Design Week, known as KODW, has been run by the Hong Kong Design Centre since 2006 as an annual thematic programme that gathers the global design community to explore how design can solve complex challenges of society. KODW is held mid-year, in June, and shares BODW's partner country: in 2024 it partnered with France under the theme Inter/Section: Crafting Tomorrow's Design, forming part of a year-long France-Hong Kong collaboration in the China-France Year of Cultural Tourism. The bodw+ platform is the event's digital knowledge arm, carrying content and exchange beyond the physical week; the Hong Kong Design Centre describes the bodw+ Series as building on BODW's legacy to foster knowledge exchange and collaboration between the partner country and Hong Kong, convening design leaders to share expertise. Since 2024 the centre has also operated the DX design hub in Sham Shui Po, a physical base for design activity that features in the BODW week's citywide programming. Together, KODW, bodw+ and the DX hub turn a single annual week into a year-round structure of conferences, content and community activity.

Hong Kong as a Design Hub

Business of Design Week is an instrument of place as much as of profession. The Hong Kong Design Centre was founded explicitly as the government's strategic partner in establishing Hong Kong as a centre of design excellence in Asia, and official statements around recent editions repeat that ambition in updated language: the 2025 edition was presented as consolidating Hong Kong's position as an international design hub, with the Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Rosanna Law, attending the opening ceremony alongside the Italian ambassador to China, Massimo Ambrosetti, and the chairman of the Hong Kong Design Centre, Joseph Lo. The Italy partnership of 2025 carried diplomatic as well as design significance, marking 55 years of diplomatic relations between China and Italy and following earlier Hong Kong-Italy collaborations in 2007 and 2017. The lead sponsorship of the event by the government's creative industries agency, first Create Hong Kong and then its successor, the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, underlines the public-policy weight placed on the week. BODW's longevity, unbroken since 2002, and its ability to rotate partnerships among the world's established design nations give that policy a durable, visible form.

Recent Editions and the 2026 Outlook

The recent cycle of Business of Design Week shows an event that has maintained scale through changing conditions. The 2024 edition with France concluded on 7 December 2024 with over 15,000 in attendance at the summit, more than 40 keynotes and panels, and the announcement of Italy as partner country for 2025. The 2025 edition with Italy ran from 3 to 6 December under the Curiosity theme, accompanied by the DFA Design Award Exhibition 2025 and BODW in the City 2025. For 2026, the Hong Kong Design Centre announced Switzerland as the year-round partner country, with the BODW 2026 Summit scheduled from 16 to 21 November, earlier in the calendar than the traditional December slot, under the theme Design in Dialogue: Connect and Transform. The announced 2026 programme includes six forward-looking topic pillars, a bodw Future Lab intended to drive collaborative insights and prototype strategies, and synergy with concurrent programmes including DESIGN@HKG, the DFA Awards presentation ceremony, DesignInspire and deTour 2026. More than two decades after its 2002 launch, BODW remains the Hong Kong Design Centre's flagship and the anchor event of Hong Kong's design calendar.

Significance

The significance of Business of Design Week rests on three foundations. First, longevity and consistency: few Asian design events have run annually since 2002 with the same organiser, the same city and the same basic architecture of summit, awards and satellite events. Second, the partner country mechanism gives BODW a diplomatic and educational dimension unusual among design conferences, building year-long relationships between Hong Kong and one design nation at a time and leaving a documented trail of exchanges with the United Kingdom, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and others. Third, its integration with the DFA Awards, Knowledge of Design Week, the bodw+ platform and the DX design hub makes it the centrepiece of an institutional ecosystem rather than a standalone fair. As an event filed at the intersection of trade promotion, cultural diplomacy and professional exchange, BODW documents how Hong Kong has used design as a language of international positioning, and its editions provide a year-by-year record of the themes, from lifestyle to sustainability, circularity, artificial intelligence and longevity, that have successively preoccupied the global design profession.