This year's Beijing Design Week program unveiled

This year's Beijing Design Week will be held from Sept 5 to Oct 7 and will feature nearly a thousand creative cultural events.

A news conference was held on May 20 at the Post Mountain art space in Beijing, revealing the overall plan, including the expo and the cultural intellectual property and innovation exhibition.

According to Wang Yudong, deputy head of Beijing Design Week's organizing committee office and general manager of Beijing Design Week Ltd, this year's event will continue the concept of Beijing as a capital of design and a smart city.

Ten major events will be held, including the Beijing Design Awards, the Beijing Design Forum and Fashion Beijing, Wang says.

The Theme Exhibition will focus on the image design of the People's Republic of China in its early years, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

This year's guest city is Mexico City, which will exhibit under the theme of Design Across Borders.

The winners of the Beijing Design Awards will be revealed on Sept 5. According to Wang, this year, the awards have added two more categories - the traditional-process-design award and service-design award.

"There will be more than 40 venues in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province hosting a variety of activities, including exhibitions, forums and culture fairs," says Wang.

The second Beijing Design Week Expo will be held from Sept 12 to 16 at the China Agricultural Exhibition Center.

According to Feng Ting, a staff member at the expo, the first edition in 2018 attracted nearly 100,000 visitors. This year's expo will be themed around Innovation Forges the Future with five sections, including The Intelligent City, Artistic Life and Internet Community.

"We are inviting designers and opinion leaders from both home and abroad to discuss the new trends in design culture," says Feng.

The Design Beijing China exhibition will be held in tandem with the expo. According to the exhibition director, Tan Zhuo, the exhibition this year will attract more than 200 brands and independent designers to showcase their designs, which cover furnishing, lighting, fabrics and conceptual devices.

"We are presenting cutting-edge design trends and the interaction between art and design," says Tan.

The Innovative Design project is another highlight, which aims to provide comprehensive system services, including design management, investment and copyright protection for design innovations and entrepreneurship.

A creative design competition themed around bamboo and life has already started as part of the project, together with an image-design competition for traditional Chinese festivals.

Beijing Design Week signed an agreement with online retail platform Tmall during the news conference, establishing an online store selling creative cultural products originating from Beijing Design Week.