The Spaces In Between: Understanding the Theme of International Design Day 2026
What happens when design is no longer read as an outcome, but as what occurs in between?
The International Council of Design (ICoD) has officially announced the theme for International Design Day (IDD) 2026: The Spaces In Between, inviting design practitioners to recognize that what happens between us matters. Across the world, design has long been viewed through objects, outputs, and final products. Yet what unfolds between these practices–within every gap in the process–holds the deepest and most meaningful significance, whether in physical, digital, or emotional spaces. These in-between spaces within our everyday design practices become vessels of human connection, opening up possibilities that no technology can fully replicate.
Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) serves as the host for this year’s International Design Day. Designers around the world are invited to focus on the thresholds where ideas and processes become experiences, where individuals become communities, and where design becomes the way we feel, relate, and coexist with one another.
Why do the spaces in between matter?
This question may arise, especially for those of us working within systems driven by capitalism, where only the outcome, the “best” design, is anticipated. In Indonesia, reflecting on recent cases within the creative industry; ideas, processes, and collaboration often seem to hold very little value–sometimes none at all! Perhaps this is the moment to become more aware and vocal, that design is not merely about results or the objects we produce. Design is more than that–it is about what happens between people in the physical, digital, and emotional spaces that allow ideas to emerge and connections to form. These thresholds are where design finds its shape; becoming both a bridge and a communication instrument that helps us understand and care for one another deeply.
Rather than forming instantly, human relationships are built gradually through processes that are rarely simple. The spaces between our daily practices–from meeting, waiting, discussing, listening, doubting, to debating–shape our creative processes and how we move together. These processes carry immense value. Design practice plays a crucial role in shaping them, yet these spaces are often the least discussed and least consciously designed. And yet, within them lies a powerful potential—one that can sustain a living, breathing design practice.
This year’s International Design Day offers a moment to slow down and look more closely at the thresholds where these processes and connections take form.
Reading design through what cannot be measured
Today, particularly in Indonesia, design is often valued through what can be measured. These criteria are important, but insufficient to explain how design is experienced and felt, because design “products” extend into lived experience, everyday behavior, emotion, and memory. International Council of Design invites us to remember and reflect: the poster that sparks a movement, the street sign that guides a stranger home, the museum text that helps someone understand, digital design that invites empathy and participation, and logos that celebrate identity.
Across scales and forms, design shapes how we live together and how we feel a sense of belonging. That feeling carries as much meaning as measurable objects. This year’s theme challenges designers to read design through what cannot be measured–to consider how design can facilitate connection and experience. It also marks a starting point for educating policymakers and the wider public to see design beyond measurable outcomes.
Ultimately, beyond all of this, this year’s International Design Day theme brings us back to the root of what we call “visual communication.” Can design once again become an instrument of communication that goes beyond the “final product”? Can design return as a space for process and encounter?
We live in an age of constant digital communication. It has never been easier or faster to connect. Yet, paradoxically, there is a deep disconnection, a longing for spaces that make us feel profoundly human. Technology enables instant communication, but many of us experience isolation, polarization, and anxiety. Speed, efficiency, scale, and everything we can quantify often leave little room for care.
Design holds the power to rebuild the spaces that bring people together. Through its processes, design shapes how we move, share ideas, care for one another, and imagine a shared future.
IDD2026 Visual Identity
The visual identity for International Design Day 2026 was developed by Holmes Studio, led by Founder and Creative Director Lucy Holmes, an SEGD board member and internationally recognized designer. Holmes Studio brings a strategic, human-centered approach, translating the theme’s focus on connection, transition, and shared space into a flexible visual identity designed for global participation.
