During the Dutch Design Week (DDW) new product ideas, approaches to design and experimental design processes will be presented over nine days at a hundred different venues in the city. Alongside exhibitions, talks, prizegiving ceremonies, networking events, panel discussions and parties, DDW also offers special itineraries focused around a particular theme. These include the Now Future Route, dedicated to the innovations and visions of tomorrow, and the Design Fiction Route, focusing on design and technology in the social structures of the future. DDW is also divided into three sections: in the Strijp Area designers, educational institutions and businesses present themselves, in the Central Area design collectives and cultural institutions from Eindhoven city centre showcase new projects, and the East Area is completely given over to emerging designers. Every year since 2009 the DDW has selected renowned designers to curate the design festival, drawing upon their respective networks of contacts from the design world. In 2015 the design studio Makkink and Bey and the artist and philosopher Koert van Mensvoort have taken on this task.

The main venues are Klokgebouw, Veemgebouw, the Design Academy Eindhoven and the Van Abbemuseum; the events that take place in other areas of the city are – almost without exception – free of charge. Tickets for the nine-day design festival cost 16 euros; student tickets cost 8,50 euros.