Isola Design Festival 2025

Isola Design Festival 2025 presents its 9th edition at Milan Design Week, celebrating its evolution into a global platform while staying grounded in its roots. This year’s theme, Design is Human, is a profound exploration of the role people play in the design process. Design should start at a human scale, ultimately enhancing the well-being of both people and the planet. Design is Human highlights the fusion of traditional mastery and digital innovation, reaffirming that human creativity remains at the core of meaningful design. 

The festival brings together international designers, studios, creators, and manufacturers, championing a humanity-driven approach to design, exploring themes like social impact, environmental responsibility, functional design, locally sourced materials, and the fusion of digital and artisanal crafts - shaping a new, people-centered design movement.

This year, BasicVillage, a revitalized early 20th-century rubber factory located in the Eastern industrial heart of Isola, joins the circuit, bringing fresh creative energy to the area. BasicVillage is the centerpiece of the festival, hosting four curated collective exhibitions by Isola’s curatorial team. These exhibitions—Conscious Objects, Isola Design Gallery, Openspace, and Isola Design Awards Winners’ Showcase — showcase innovative, contemporary design practices. Here Isola also hosts an enticing program of inspiring talks, workshops, and live events. 

Isola Design Festival transforms the entire Isola neighborhood into a dynamic hub of design during Milan Design Week 2025, offering a diverse mix of exhibitions, installations, workshops. At VIAFARINI, Isola presents Rasa - The Indian Collective, an exhibition celebrating India’s rich craftsmanship, reinterpreted through the lens of contemporary design.

The festival also shines a spotlight on the humans of the district. Local studios, workshops, and galleries will open their doors, offering visitors an authentic experience of the district's creative pulse.

This year’s edition of Isola Design Festival is a celebration of how design, rooted in human stories and traditions, continues to evolve, connect, and inspire.