Core77

Over the past few years, the London Design Festival has put itself on the map. This year, Earl's Court housed Designersblock in addition to the annual 100% Design tradeshow. On the east side of the city, Tent London hosted a digital event for the first time this year, while Tom Dixon curated events at The Dock.

Returning for their second year, gadget blog Gizmodo presented over 60 devices in New York including a collection of vintage electronics, a giant 3D Etch-a-Sketch, a live band ArcAttack performing with home-made tesla coils, many hands-on interactive demos and the crowd favorite - an automatic pancake making machine.

The Eurobike Show 2009 is one of the world's leading tradeshows for the bike business. More than thousand exhibitors from 42 countries showcased their latest products. This year's hot item is all about electric bicycles, or e-bikes, accompanied by lightweight parts, more comfort, biking fashion, and colorful accessories to pimp your bike.

The inaugural Maker Faire Africa is a gathering of inventors and entrepreneurs from around the globe. One of the main purposes was to showcase African ingenuity to world. Taking place in Accra, Ghana, Maker Faire Africa had local artisans as well as Makers from as far as Liberia, Malawi and Uganda.

The New York International Gift Fair is "the premier gift and home accessories market in the U.S.", with 2,900 exhibitors and 30,000 buyers traipsing through the Javits Center to see the latest and greatest.

The Sydney Design Festival is in its 13th year. This international design festival is centered around the Powerhouse Museum, but there are events and offsite-exhibitions through out the city, including the Workshopped '09 exhibition, Launch Pad, and F!NK: Fostering Design.

This year, Istanbul Design Weekend took place between 18-21 June 2009 with the theme of "Mediterranean Design between Present and Future". The four day event aimed to offer two core groups of activities linked by the theme of Mediterranean design.

"Bauhaus City, get on site!" says the international summer school organized by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation that celebrates its 90th birthday this year. Creative youngsters from all over the world have been invited to get in-depth with the famous Bauhaus' masters and buildings on location. After an intensive week of workshops and lectures the participants present and perform their stories and designs for the future of Bauhaus City.

Bread & Butter Berlin (BBB) takes place at the historical Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, a special venue for the international fashion scene to meet up and showcase their latest collections. From hangars full of fashion we captured highlights such as G-Star's Fashion Show, Italian craftsmen designing jeans at the LABORATORIO, and live events at the Luna Park.

NeoCon happens every year at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, one of the world's largest indoor commercial spaces. In addition to the showroom mainstays like Herman Miller, Knoll, Bernhardt, and Steelcase, two floors of temporary exhibition space are filled out with the latest in products for the interior contract industry. This year, we also visited four offsite events: Making Modern at The School of the Art Institute, The Promise of this Moment, Object Society, and the annual Guerrilla Truck Show.

The MD&M East expo (Medical Design and Manufacturing) is an annual exhibition of medical devices and product manufacturers, and is the world's second largest medical OEM event (next to MD&M West). MD&M runs concurrently with ATX (the automation technology expo), which features the latest in automated manufacturing technologies.

New York Design Week revolves around the annual presentation of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center in New York City, accompanied by many satellite shows and parties throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Hailed as one of the largest design events in the world, Milan Design Week has many growing clusters. The Fairgrounds are full of business, while the streets of the Zona Tortona and beyond are bustling with clanking glasses, great Italian food, and a younger scene of artists and designers alike. The event consists of mainly industrial design, but this year we saw sculpture, art performances, environmentally concerned discourse, and music.

The International Home and Housewares Show happens annually at the McCormick Center in Chicago, IL, showcasing thousands of products from domestic and international vendors in the categories of clean + contain; dine + design; and wired + well.

What a springtime! The Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Pictoplasma are hosting this year's PICTOPIA, a unique show on character arts and design. For six weeks, Berlin is transformed a world of imaginative creatures contributed by creative minds from all over the world. Enjoy our shootings from the opening night, followed by a Character Walk along more than 30 galleries stuffed with illustrations, objects and installations.

Transversale 2009 offers a full program (Feb.-Jun.) on the interface between art and design. Contributions of no less than ten organizations in Dortmund results in a wide range of objects and installations by artists, designers, craftsmen, and students exploring the boundaries where art meets design and design meets art.

The annual New York Toy Fair, located at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, drew over 20,000 attendees this year. Visitors took the isles to check out over 100,000 products, and Core77 was there to bring the hottest ones right to your desktop.

The Cologne International Design Festival consists of two main (unfortunately competing rather than collaborating) events: The IMM Furniture Show and the Passagen - a show program with a great number of exhibitions in the main fair as well as galleries, show rooms, bars and shops across the city.

More subdued than previous years in regard to presentation spectacle, the 2009 North American International Auto Show focused on product - especially high efficiency and electric vehicles. This was the year everyone got serious about "eco" being more than just a nice idea, with almost every major manufacturer introducing a hybrid or EV... at least in concept form.

The Museum of Arts and Design inaugurated its new home at Columbus Circle with Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, a special thematic exhibition featuring 51 contemporary artists from 17 countries who transform discarded, commonplace, or valueless objects into extraordinary works of art.