As part of the Disainiöö satellite programme, Vivita Solutions Lab and Open Footwear invite you to a one-of-a-kind barefoot footwear workshop, where you can create your own personalized pair of shoes from start to finish.

Throughout the workshop, you will take on the roles of designer, maker, and future wearer. Using a combination of digital tools and traditional craft techniques, you will create your own pair of barefoot shoes. Once completed, you can also personalize your footwear to make it truly your own.

No previous experience is required—all the necessary techniques will be taught on-site by experienced instructors. This is the first opportunity in Estonia to take part in a barefoot footwear workshop based on the Open Footwear concept.

The workshop is especially suitable for young people and their parents, offering a unique opportunity to spend quality time together while learning new skills and experiencing the journey from idea to finished product.

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The international exhibition “Well Made – what it means today” is coming to Tallinn’s Põhjala Factory as part of the Tallinn Design Festival.

Curated by the London-based design studio Pearson Lloyd, the exhibition explores what “well made” means in contemporary design. The focus is on materials, production methods, and design practices that meet the growing need for sustainability and responsible manufacturing.

The exhibition features nearly 50 objects—ranging from everyday items to experimental solutions—all of which ask: what does “well made” actually mean? The question is not limited to form or function, but also encompasses the impact of production, lifespan, and environmental footprint.

“Well Made” is not merely an exhibition, but part of a growing international collection and thought platform that explores the role of design in shaping the future.

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Paper Mill Coffee’s Bakermill space will soon be dedicated to the visual world of bread culture: through photography and art where baked goods transform into objects, symbols, and protagonists.

Bread as a cultural icon, a design object, a routine, a ritual. The exhibition brings you visual stories viewed through five distinct photographic lenses, revealing indulgent pleasures and fanatical rituals.

Light art, site specific installations and bread worlds.

Curated by Helen Sirp.

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The exhibition of the Estonian Product Design Award BRUNO 2026 will present the freshest and most outstanding Estonian product design to the public as part of the Tallinn Design Festival.

The exhibition showcases innovative products and product series created over the past two years – from everyday objects to technically complex solutions. The display offers an overview of how design responds to today’s challenges by combining functionality, aesthetics and sustainability.

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Kopli – a district of factories, the sea and stories

What happens when a former shipyard, a rubber factory, a workers’ settlement and a wild coastal landscape come together? Come and discover Kopli and the area around Põhjala Factory with Hannele, a local history enthusiast!

As part of Tallinn Design Festival, we’ll explore the grounds of the former Bekker Shipyard and today’s Põhjala Factory, discovering remarkable buildings and traces of Kopli’s industrial past. We’ll also explore the fascinating streets of Kopliranna, Sirbi and Kopli, visit the site of a former cemetery, and hear stories about the people who once lived and worked here.

The tour lasts approximately 1 hour 45 minutes. Kopli can be windy and the route includes varied terrain, so please wear comfortable shoes and dress appropriately for the weather.

Hannele has lived in Kopli and introduced the area to visitors for five years

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What can a meal, a memory, or the world's waste become?

For its sixth year at Tallinn Design Festival, the Arts Thread Global Creative Graduate Show gathers 30 boundary-pushing works from the planet's most exciting emerging designers — biodegradable inks, food-waste light, shoes that return to the earth, tools that restore dignity. 

This is where the future of product design shows its hand. Come and meet what's next!

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The Estonian Design and Architecture Schools Showcase has become one of the integral parts of the Tallinn Design Festival! Exhibiting Estonia’s own schools’ is increasingly important in a rapidly changing world, because aren't educational and research institutions the places where the play between experimentation and tradition "saves the day"? In the shade of various global crises, there is an increasing need for the light of youthful and clever design.

Showcased are the works of Pallas University of Applied Sciences, University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy, Tallinn University Haapsalu College, Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University of Applied Sciences.

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What happens to Estonian creation when it leaves Estonia?

The exhibition by New York-based photographer Mauricio Zelaya “Estonia, Elsewhere" brings together photographs created across multiple countries through ongoing collaborations with Estonian designers, stylists, artists, and friends.

These images trace the influence of Estonian creativity beyond its borders. The exhibition reflects on friendship, cultural exchange, and the ways Estonia's creative community has shaped both my perspective and photographic practice.

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The tour is curated by landscape architects Aljona Galazan and Maali Roomet-Allese.

Aljona promotes human-friendly urban space and cycling as an everyday mode of transport, while Maali translates complex spatial issues into practical community activities.

An accessible city space is one where everyone can move, play, and feel safe – regardless of age, ability, or background. At some point in life, anyone may face challenges in mobility or spatial use, and a supportive environment becomes the key to quality of life.

A safe cycling network and access to urban gardening and shared activities close to home open up city space and services to everyone – including those with limited opportunities. These topics are often treated separately, as if they were only the needs of narrow interest groups, but viewed through the lens of social cohesion, a much broader picture emerges.

During the bike tour, we will experience and discuss all of this together.

Bring your own bike – you can also join with a scooter, unicycle, or electric wheelchair.

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Interior projects usually spread across several tools before they reach the client. 

In this hands-on workshop we take one project through the whole arc in thesheet: mood boards, product selection, spec sheets, renders and the final client presentation. Participants can follow along or work on a project of their own.

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Dekoor Studio presents Timeless Detail, a jacquard-woven home textile collection created in collaboration with textile artist Caunison.

The product presentation invites visitors to discover multifunctional textile objects, including a blanket that can also be worn as a poncho and a pillow that transforms into a protective dust bag.

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Hundreds of designers and artists have made their homes in the ten buildings of Telliskivi Creative City. This year’s Tallinn Design Festival tour takes you on a journey through the Creative City, with a focus on six designers who will introduce their work, share their personal journeys as designers, and happily answer all your questions.

The walk will be accompanied by a refreshing glass of bubbly and an inspiring creative environment!

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Stella Soomlais studio presents a new collaboration with artist Anu Samarüütel.

Anu's art meets the leatherwork made in Stella's studio: bags, wristbands and coasters, made in very limited numbers. Every piece is one of a kind – there will not be another quite like it.

Anu is an artist and fashion designer trained at Central Saint Martins. Stella's circular bags are made to last, be repaired and carried on.

Come and see how two creations become one – and take home a piece no one else has.

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Standard and the renowned Finnish design studio Aivan present the new product line Pergola.

Join us on 1st October at 5 PM at Standard’s showroom at Veerenni 24 to discover Pergola, a modular furniture solution for contemporary workspaces. The same modules can be combined into meeting areas, workstations or lounge spaces and reconfigured according to the needs of the space.

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For Tallinn Design Festival, Booze Mule Studio transforms into a living laboratory where liquid form becomes product design. It is a space where drinking culture is torn from its everyday context and elevated to the status of a pure art object.

Glass as a frame, liquid as sculpture, sustainability as the foundation.

Bartender Hans Kaigas deconstructs the classic concept of a bar, transforming traditional ingredients into drinks where every layer of flavor is designed to be visually appealing as well. The experiences created behind the bar are not just drinks, but one-of-a-kind, sustainable microcosms—designed to linger in memory without leaving a trace on the environment.

Stop by to add a sensory interlude to your evening. A studio where design is poured into glass.

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The „Think Beta“ approach: Beta is about designing spaces that are never finished. Agile, lean and adaptable – not out of uncertainty, but from conviction.

Jaume Domènech, Senior VP for International Markets & Global Business Development at Vitra will share on how more than three decades of observing and shaping dynamic work environments has lead a Swiss furniture manufacturer to a mode of thought that values experimentation over perfection, and embraces change, applicable to how we organize our work and the space it happens in.

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Sacredness usually sounds fixed: a belief, a symbol, a place set apart from everything else. This exhibition begins somewhere more fragile – with the feeling that something is suddenly important, charged, untouchable, even if it is ordinary or impossible to name.

The exhibition invites visitors to think and also to remind themselves about what is really sacred (feeling) for them.

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During the Tallinn Design Festival, visitors have one last week to experience the retrospective exhibition "The Whole World a Bauhaus", which offers a fascinating insight into the work and life of the Bauhaus school of art and design.

As part of the festival programme, architectural historian Andres Kurg will give a special lecture on Bauhaus on 1 October at 5:30 pm.

Marit Ilison’s solo exhibition “LIVING/ROOM” will also be on view for the last week.

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Viscosa creative industries conference 2026 asks a direct question: can scarcity be a blessing? We explore where and how creativity meets business, and why and how talent and mastery make it possible to thrive beyond the major centres.

The conference brings together creators, entrepreneurs, developers, and thinkers to discuss one of the most pressing issues of our time: how can we sustainably foster culture and creativity in a world where resources always seem to be in short supply?