Every January, as Toronto settles into the deep freeze of a Canadian winter, something curious happens along its sidewalks. Storefront windows once dressed for retail become miniature galleries. Quiet lobbies transform into stages for talks, screenings, and parties. For ten days, the city itself becomes the exhibition, and no ticket is required to walk through it.
This is DesignTO, Canada's leading and largest annual design festival, and its next chapter is already being written. Applications are now open for the festival's Venue-Designer Matchmaking Program, an open call inviting artists and designers to claim a stage of their own during Festival Week, running January 22 to 31, 2027. With a rolling deadline and a final cutoff of September 14, 2026, the window to get involved is open now, but it will not stay that way for long.
If you have a project you’d like to showcase, then we want to hear from you!
Since launching in 2011, DesignTO has grown into a genuine cultural institution, one built less on grand museum halls than on the everyday architecture of the city itself. The festival celebrates design as a multidisciplinary way of thinking and making, and its footprint reflects that ambition. Over the years it has welcomed more than 1.2 million visitors, showcased the work of over 7,500 artists and designers, and reached over 2.6 billion people through print and digital media.
What makes the festival distinct is its accessibility. There is no velvet rope and no entry fee for the public. Each January, more than 100 exhibitions and events unfold across Toronto's neighbourhoods, turning ordinary commutes into unplanned encounters with new ideas. The upcoming edition marks the festival's 17th year, and organizers are once again matching creative talent with willing hosts across the city.
Three Ways to Take the Stage
The Matchmaking Program is built on a simple exchange. Host venues across Toronto offer their space free of charge, while designers bring the ideas and craftsmanship that fill it. The format is entirely up to the designer, and DesignTO offers three paths to participation.
A window installation runs for the full ten days, glowing for passersby around the clock, and sometimes viewable from inside during business hours as well. An event is a single day of programming, whether that means a talk, a tour, a product launch, a screening, or a party. An exhibition stretches across multiple days, can open before the festival and linger after it closes, and often includes a reception or an artist talk. Whichever route a designer chooses, the venue itself costs nothing; only the creative production, from materials to signage, falls to the artist.
Behind the glow of a finished installation sits a fairly straightforward application. Designers are asked for a short bio of their practice, three to five images of representative or proposed work, and a description of the concept, including any technical needs like wall mounting or power access. Optional sketches are welcome, and applicants are asked to rank their top three venue choices from a curated package DesignTO provides. A modest $25 plus HST application fee, processed through the Canadian nonprofit platform Zeffy, rounds out the submission.
From there, the matchmaking begins. Between July 27 and September 21, 2026, DesignTO reviews applications on a rolling basis and proposes pairings to host venues, who then have a week to confirm the fit. All venue-designer pairings are locked in by October 9, 2026, with final event listings due October 23. Because matches are made as applications arrive rather than all at once, designers who apply early give themselves the best odds of landing their preferred venue.
Pairing is not guaranteed for every applicant, and DesignTO is candid about that. But for the designers who do get matched, the reward is a rare kind of visibility: a storefront, a lobby, or a gallery handed over for ten days to a single creative vision, seen by a city that has come to expect exactly this kind of surprise each winter. As the 17th edition takes shape, Toronto's windows are, once again, waiting for someone to fill them with a new idea.
DesignTO is a charitable arts organization celebrating 16 years of designing a sustainable, just, and joyful future. We curate exhibitions, presentations and educational programming to increase the public’s knowledge and appreciation of design. As Canada’s largest annual design festival, DesignTO has welcomed over 1.2 million attendees, reached 2.6 billion people through media, and showcased 7,500+ artists and designers since 2011.
