Johannesburg and Cape Town, August 2026 – Design Week South Africa 2026, presented by Pinterest, brings together two brands united by a shared belief in the power of creativity, community and inspiration. As a leader in visual search and discovery, Pinterest is a natural partner for Design Week South Africa, supporting a platform that celebrates the depth, diversity and strength of the South African design sectors.
The partnership between Design Week South Africa and Pinterest supports the entity’s mandate to support and foster local creative talent, ideas and perspectives by sharing and connecting these to a wider global design conversation, reinforcing Design Week South Africa’s ambition to make design more accessible, connected and relevant.
Taking place across two cities and two weeks in October, Design Week South Africa, presented by Pinterest, will bring together the best of the country’s design talent, creating a concentrated, high-visibility moment for the creative sector that invigorates both cities, draws thousands of attendees and connects South Africa’s design community with local and international audiences, press and industry professionals.
Dedicated Pinterest Activations
Beyond its role as Title Sponsor of Design Week South Africa 2026, Pinterest will work with local designers, crafters and makers in Johannesburg and Cape Town to present a series of engaging activations that celebrate the breadth and creativity of South Africa’s design industry.
Drawing inspiration from Pinterest’s annual trend report, Pinterest Predicts, the activations will bring selected 2026 trends to life through local creative interpretations. In doing so, Pinterest provides an opportunity for local talent to reinterpret global design trends through a distinctly South African lens, connecting discovery and inspiration with hands-on creative experiences.
Design Week South Africa 2026 Theme
Design Week South Africa, presented by Pinterest, takes the theme The Shape of Us, which centres on how cultural identity, historical roots and future-thinking inform South African design. Participants have been encouraged to interpret these thematic ideas in their own presentations.
About Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual search and discovery platform where people find inspiration, curate ideas and shop products – all in a positive place online. Pinterest has over 640 million monthly active users worldwide.
About Design Week South Africa
Design Week South Africa is a platform dedicated to celebrating design as an expression of creative thinking and making, jumpstarting collaboration, encouraging informative dialogue and open-source knowledge share, while cultivating the next generation of creative leaders through inclusivity and support. Our mission is to create South Africa’s leading design platform.
For decades, the incredible economic, educational, creative and cultural benefits of dedicated, city-wide, design weeks have been witnessed the world over, from Milan to Melbourne. A creative space where designers and makers can express themselves, the trade and public can engage with the local design sector, while the next generation of designers, artists and makers can be inspired to continue a legacy – in our case, the legacy of South African design.
Through year-round activations and two city wide design weeks, we aim to boost the local creative economy with an approach that is industry-led, increasing the public’s knowledge; awareness and appreciation of design while generating and collecting open-source data around local design sectors.
Details
Design Week South Africa’s city-wide programme involves designers, brands and locations across Johannesburg and Cape Town. Design Week Johannesburg will run from Thursday, 8 October to Sunday, 11 October. Design Week Cape Town will run from Thursday, 22 to Sunday, 25 October. The full programme of events and activations will be available online in the lead up to Design Week and distributed across each city through the official Design Week broadsheet.
