From Wednesday, September 30 to Saturday, October 3, 2015, the city of Bologna will become part of the international network of design-related events with the first edition of Bologna Design Week (BDW), a diverse networking platform and cultural itinerary about the propulsive power of design for innovation and promotion. The event will be organized in the city center during the Cersaie International Exhibition, for over 30 years an unmissable appointment for visitors and trade operators from across the world.

Bologna Design Week is a visionary concept created by Youtool //design out of the box, a network of trade professionals who see the potential of Bologna's decade-old design-related tradition and strong local community of field experts as a competitive platform for a territorial marketing program to promote the city itself. The initiative is designed to put Bologna on the international map of unmissable design-related events. Conceived as an annual appointment, Bologna Design Week would improve the city's cultural offer by creating a network for different operators and increasing the city center's appeal, and combine tradition and innovation in the ever increasing field of design-related activities.

Bologna Design Week will offer its visitors an itinerary that will touch design offices, retail spaces and clubs where famous and emerging designers will present prototypes and products to highlight new trends and create new scenarios. The itinerary will also include open studios and events involving retailers and shops committed to local traditions, food design and more experimental practices, organized in new exhibition patterns within a totally innovative design-related concept. Shops will become galleries and happy hours will become vernissages in a mapping of outstanding professionals and businesses networked in an integrated communication system.

The initiative responds to the transition that has led design to increasingly become an infra-language, and so much more than an expression of the manufacturing world. Design's potential for innovation and exchange between new actors and sectors has spread beyond interior and product design into art, architecture, fashion, music, visual culture and food.

Like any other design-related event, Bologna Design Week will offer a busy program of workshops, training courses, presentations and meetings as opportunities for study and in-depth discussion organized in association with design schools to get in touch with manufacturers and find out about the latest developments in the field.

Visit the website www.bolognadesignweek.com, and Bologna Design Week Facebook page for the latest news. In the meantime, you may already register on the site homepage to be part of the first edition of Bologna Design Week.