Design Talks Institute (d.talks)

Since 2013, the Design Talks Institute (d.talks) has been working to educate the public on the value of good design because design is a part of our everyday lives and impacts us in ways we don’t even notice. Through free talks, screenings, events and exhibitions, d.talks fosters conversations about what good design looks like and how it can be used to improve our city.

Thanks to the support of the Calgary Arts Development (CADA) Operating Grant, d.talks has been able to strengthen its organizational capacity, support its growing team and expand the scale of its public programming.

“As a small community-based organization, CADA support gave us the capacity to think bigger about what design programming could look like in Calgary,” says Lanigan. “The grant gave us the stability to launch Design Week — a city-wide platform that celebrates the designers, studios and creative thinkers shaping Calgary’s cultural identity.”

In 2025, d.talks launched Design Week, which ran from August 7 to 9, with 23 events over those three days. The festival celebrated the great design talents in the city with the theme In Plain Sight, appreciating both the obvious and more subtle aspects of design. Created by designers, the festival educated the public on the value of various design disciplines, including graphic, tech, architecture, urban and landscape design.

When Lanigan first brought her proposal for Design Week to stakeholders, her idea was described as “audacious.” But when the discussion came around to including design artists across multiple sectors, from urban planning to fashion design, the opportunities became apparent. More than 2,500 people attended Design Week, with participants describing how Calgary “needed this” and how thrilling it was to learn from experts in their fields.

“[Design Week] allows us to really start to educate the public on the value and the impact of good design,” said Lanigan. “Our goal for Design Week is truly to highlight the best and brightest in our city, to show Calgarians what’s happening behind the scenes within the design world.”

The operating grant allowed d.talks to pay staff and long-term volunteers enough to take on roles that made Design Week possible. It also went towards supporting artist fees for installation work, speaker fees, project logistics, volunteer management and other organizational efforts.

Lanigan says that the support of the grant provided d.talks with the stability needed to move “from a small community organization to being an employer in the city.”

Along with Design Week, the grant provided d.talks an opportunity to take on unexpected collaborations. During the 39th High Performance Rodeo, d.talks joined the Major Matt Mason Collective for a talk after a performance of the show Flux in the City, discussing civic engagement. Having that financial support gave d.talks flexibility for, as Lanigan describes, “collaboration in the spirit of collaboration.”

Going forward, d.talks aims to build long-term operational sustainability while strengthening its role as a connector and catalyst within Calgary’s creative sector. By bringing together designers, artists, businesses and civic institutions, the organization hopes to foster new collaborations and elevate the role of design in shaping Calgary’s future.