No doubt the Design Indaba Expo had you in awe, completely inspired and wishing you could see top-quality South African designs again.
And you can! The Cape Town Design Route is your all-in-one guide to some of the very best design the city and surrounds has to offer. Simply hop into your car or take a bus, and spend a leisurely day or two further exploring the creative gems you first encountered at Design Indaba Expo.
The Cape Town Design Route was launched in 2009 in partnership with Cape Town Tourism to attract tourists and design lovers to the spaces that the city’s creative minds inhabit. This is the ideal opportunity to meet with designers on their own creative turf, catch a glimpse into their creative processes by seeing that at work, or simply just enjoy being in an environment where magic happens.
Says Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette Du Toit-Helmbold: “With many highly rated designers from a wide range of disciplines living and working in Cape Town, and visitors returning time and time again to experience Cape Town’s inspiring creative energy, the city’s status as a desirable cultural and creative destination is on the rise. Cape Town Tourism supports a number of key design projects that highlight Cape Town’s rich design offering and reinforce the city’s reputation as Africa’s creative and design hub. These include the Cape Town Design Route and map, of which we are a key sponsor, and Cape Town’s bid to be World Design Capital 2014, a bold step spearheaded by Cape Town Partnership and the City of Cape Town.”
Featuring 56 Western Cape-based designers and design studios, the journey along this route is sure to send you into sensory overload. From the City Bowl across the Southern Peninsula and to the Winelands, you can be sure that you’ll see only the designs of the highest quality as all designers and studios are Design Indaba Expo exhibitors whose work has been stringently curated.
Pick up a Cape Town Design Route at any one of Cape Town Tourism’s Information Centres across the city, or from the Design Indaba offices. This map will give you all the details you need to find your way to your favourite design spot, and makes it even easier with a detailed road map. Another fun way to see it all is to hop onto one of the City Sightseeing open top buses and take it from there.
Design Indaba and Cape Town Tourism founded the Design Route as another way to promote local design, all year round, while also giving tourism in and around the city a boost. A better world through creativity starts with a better city through creativity.
