You voted, we counted – IN[FLUX] is this year’s theme!

We’re excited for this year’s Festival theme, exploring tension, movement, and change during this critical moment in time. A modular theme, IN[FLUX] alternates between IN[TENSION], IN[HABIT] and IN[FORM], creating meaning through the pairing of language and context.

For our SDF 2026 Partners, this means flexibility in your ideas, adaptable to one or all of the modular themes – what will you propose for SDF 2026?

Thank you to our community for showing up with 400 votes! Your input helps shape one of the largest publicly created design festivals in the world.

What happens now?

Over the next few weeks, the SDF Council and members of the SDF 2026 Planning Team will be building a theme statement to share how they hope our community will respond to this theme as they pull together proposals for this year’s Festival. The full theme statement will be released with the Call for Proposals in early April, but you don’t have to wait to consider what IN[FLUX] means to you.

Upcoming dates

Early April – Call for Proposals launch
April-May – SDF Mixers hosted by the Planning Team to support prospective Partners
Mid-May – Proposals due
August 15-20 – Seattle Design Festival!

Stay up to date on all of our Festival announcements and upcoming events by subscribing to our e-newsletter and following us on Instagram!