Eindhoven Design District

Eindhoven is bursting with design! We have events like Dutch Design Week, but also talented designers, inspiring exhibitions, creative districts, and innovative companies. Under the name Eindhoven Design District, we make design in the city visible and tangible, and stimulate new design. We do this in collaboration with the municipality of Eindhoven and the Dutch Design Foundation. We are responsible for all content marketing of Eindhoven Design District. The project received funding from Regio Deal Brainport Eindhoven until the end of 2025.

Making design in Eindhoven visible

We put projects, designers, objects, and locations in the spotlight. These places and initiatives symbolise the added value of design and the richness of Eindhoven’s design offering. They contribute to the city's future, offer innovative solutions to current challenges, encourage new ways of looking at social issues, or make design accessible to a broad audience. We deliberately look beyond socially relevant design alone, because sometimes design is simply beautiful or surprising.

Branding Eindhoven Design District

In collaboration with design agency George&Harrison, we developed a new corporate identity for EDD. This distinct visual identity is based on the corporate colors of the coalition partners. Municipality of Eindhoven-red, Dutch Design Foundation-blue, and Thisiseindhoven.com-pink. We combine these colors in various ways, creating striking combinations. In addition, we use the bold Eindhoven font for a strong typographic style. EDD's photography style mainly focuses on people experiencing design. The visual identity forms the backbone of Eindhoven Design District and ensures that routes, markers, publications, and online content are all recognisable as part of one coherent whole.

Eindhovendesigndistrict.com

We developed a project website for designers and stakeholders, including policy makers, project developers, and innovation managers. George&Harrison designed the website, and Jeroen Braspenning took care of the development. On this project website, we highlight Eindhoven-based design projects with a focus on social and/or urban development. The aim is to provide visitors with in-depth background information and to inspire and encourage them to engage designers for their own challenges.

In addition to cases, the website also features vision pieces. In these articles, people from the region share their perspectives on design in Eindhoven, talk about their experiences of working with designers, and show the role design can play within organisations and governments. In this way, the website serves as a source of inspiration for anyone looking to consciously apply design.

Launch during Dutch Design Week 2022

In 2022, Eindhoven Design District was officially launched during Dutch Design Week. With an exhibition on Ketelhuisplein, we presented visitors with a first cohesive overview of design power in Eindhoven and showed what Eindhoven Design District stands for.

The exhibition featured panels showcasing a wide range of design projects, from social design to innovative developments in public space. In a short amount of time, visitors gained a clear sense of the breadth and impact of design in Eindhoven. This part of the exhibition travelled across the city in 2023 and 2024, with stops including City Hall, the Evoluon, and Heuvel. For visitors with limited time, we developed a booklet with information about Eindhoven Design District.

Storytelling on Thisiseindhoven.com

We refer for storytelling to an EDD theme page on Thisiseindhoven.com. Here, people can find an overall impression of the city’s design offering, background information, routes and teasers linking to related content. This page functions as an accessible showcase for residents and visitors to the city. Business audiences can also gain a quick, high-level overview of the design offering here.

Design routes in the city

To truly experience design in Eindhoven, we developed design routes using Storymaps. Whether you are a seasoned design enthusiast or simply curious to explore the design power of Eindhoven Design District, these routes guide you past both well-known highlights and hidden gems. There are three routes: Strijp, City Centre, and KnoopXL – TU/e campus.

A complete overview of design: the EDD map

As a complement to the digital routes, we developed a physical Eindhoven Design District map in 2024. This map brings together all design in Eindhoven and offers visitors and residents a clear, at-a-glance overview of the city’s design offering. A second edition has since been released.

The map is available at the This is Eindhoven Store and at various design locations across the city, including Kazerne, Piet Hein Eek, Next Nature, and MU. Together with the Storymaps routes, the map forms an accessible entry point to design in the city.

Info markers

To further help visitors recognise and experience design, we developed a series of design-worthy information markers for the public space. These markers make design literally visible in the city and create recognisability and cohesion between places and routes.

After a What if Lab in 2023 and an open call for Eindhoven-based designers, the design by Tijs Gilde of Studio Guilty was selected. The markers form one visual family, while remaining adaptable to different locations and functions. In 2024, the first markers were installed along the Strijp design route. In 2025, the system was expanded to the city centre and KnoopXL. In this way, design in Eindhoven is becoming increasingly visible and easier to experience.

Design Poort

Eindhoven Design District is not only about highlighting existing design, but also about adding new design to the city. From the very beginning, there was an ambition to realise an iconic object that represents Eindhoven’s design power.

That ambition came to life in the Design Poort, designed by Daphna Laurens. The design emerged from a What if Lab in 2023 and was officially opened during Dutch Design Week. The large arches flow into one another and are firmly connected. Bending and connecting are central themes: designers reshape challenges, explore new perspectives, and bring people together.

The Design Poort found a permanent home on Strijp-T, where it acts as a link between Strijp-S and Strijp-R. As a physical entrance to Eindhoven Design District, it is a recognisable and inviting object that expresses what the city stands for.

Podcast De Tekentafel

Together with World Design Embassies and Blickfänger, we developed a podcast about design power: De Tekentafel. How do you get the most out of a journey with designers, what makes a successful collaboration, and what new perspectives can it offer an organization? Journalist Niels Guns discusses it with designers, policymakers, scientists, and business experts. The podcast ran for two seasons and concluded in 2024. All episodes are still available on Spotify.

Looking ahead

In the coming years, Eindhoven Design District will continue to build on the knowledge, experience, and ambitions developed since its launch. The focus lies on maintaining and strengthening existing routes, adding new routes, and further developing tools that make design visible and tangible.

We also see opportunities to stimulate (temporary) design objects and to deepen collaboration with partners within Eindhoven’s design ecosystem. In this way, Eindhoven Design District continues to develop as a coherent whole, with attention to quality, relevance, and social impact.