Get involved with World Design Systems Week!

We’ve been getting a lot of questions around World Design Systems Week! It’s been great to know so many of you are just as excited about it as we are! This article gives a little more detail into what it’s like to host an event and other ways you can participate.

What is World Design Systems Week (WDSW)?

Before we jump into the good stuff, if you’re unfamiliar with WDSW, that’s OK! This is the first year, and we recently announced it. From September 19-23, 2022, locations across the globe will be hosting events in celebration of design systems and the people behind them. Learn more about the story behind World Design System Week.

How can I get involved?

There are several ways you can celebrate with us! The easiest way is to participate in an event in your location. If there isn’t an event near you, we invite you to host an event!

Host an event

There’s a lot of flexibility in hosting an event. Your event can be in-person or online, formal or informal. You can have an in-person happy hour at a local pub. Or you can run an evening of lightning talks or host a half-day conference. We recommend picking an event that is easy for you to run and something that meets the needs of your community. Some other ideas include:

• Non-profit volunteering or mentoring
• Pub quiz around design systems
• Hackathons
• Presentation of guest speakers
• Lightning talks around design system horror stories (we all have some skeletons) and lessons learned

What should I know if I’m hosting an event?

The event type is flexible, but any WDSW event needs to:

• Adhere to our Code of Conduct and uphold our mission and principles
• Incorporate this year’s theme of “building bridges” (learn more about that here)
• Incorporate our branding whenever possible to help provide consistency across the world
• Promote our sponsors or partners who help make this happen!

If you’re unfamiliar with hosting events, we recommend teaming up with a local meetup, organization, or community, or partner up with your co-workers and friends. We also recommend starting small (think the scale of a kid’s birthday party and not a celebrity wedding!)

Why should I get involved?

Our main goal is to build a community your location can turn to. By hosting an event, you’re encouraging meaningful conversations and building a network of design system makers. Not only does this feel good, but it’s also an excellent way to grow your network if you’re looking to hire top-notch talent.

I’m ready to host. What’s next?

We’re super excited to hear about your event! You can submit your event with this short form. From there, we’ll reach out to you with an event organizer’s playbook and invite you to our organizer Slack channel. If there’s already an event happening in your location, we’ll connect you with the organizer(s) to see how you might be able to collaborate.

Sponsor or partner with us

An alternative to co-hosting an event is sponsoring or partnering with WDSW! While zeroheight is globally managing logistical support and operational costs this year, this is a community-driven event. We’d love support from partners. Some ideas include:

• In-kind sponsorship for discounts, free downloads, extended trials, or swag
• Covering some costs of an event in your location – sponsoring tickets to events, covering venue rental, providing food, and so on
• Covering some costs associated with any global virtual events
• Posting about the week and/or location-specific event via your social media outlets

These are just some options, but if you have other ideas or questions, please contact us at partnership@designsystemsweek.com.

In return, we’ll include your logo on our site and a slide deck template (all locations will use it). We will also mention you in our social media posts.

Join the 2023 Planning Committee

Can you believe it? We’re already thinking about WDSW 2023! While the zeroheight Community and Content team took the reigns this year to ensure the week could get launched, it’s always been our intent to build a broader committee to improve and scale the event.

The broader committee will have a hand at:

• Determining the theme for 2023
• Organizing a global, virtual event
• Helping find partnerships and sponsorships to fund global operations/events
• Assisting locations to set up events (Locations would do the planning, but we’d help guide them so they could be successful)
• Promoting the week through social channels, etc.
• And helping scale the event to be bigger and better than this year!

But before you take the plunge to join the 2023 committee, we recommend you host or co-host an event in your location for 2022. This will help you understand what it’s like to participate in World Design Systems Week.

More questions?

No problem! Feel free to reach out to us at events@designsystemsweek.com. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have.