On the morning of October 23, the 3rd Xi'an Design Week and Design Industry Expo, hosted by the Xi'an Municipal People's Government, officially opened at the Xi'an International Convention and Exhibition Center. With 'Dialogue' as its central theme, this four-day design week focused on three major areas: industrial design, innovative design, and consumer design. Covering a total exhibition area of 32,000 square meters, it featured 10 themed exhibition zones, more than 20 dialogue and seminar events, and over 400 participating organizations, together presenting a showcase of deep integration between design and industry.

Discussing New Momentum for Design

The opening ceremony brought together a distinguished group of guests. Representatives of the Xi'an Municipal Government attended the ceremony, alongside Wang Yanhua, Deputy Director of the China Service Outsourcing Research Center; Liu Jun, Party Secretary of the Xi'an Expo Affairs Center; Liu Guanzhong, one of Tsinghua University's inaugural Senior Professors in Liberal Arts; Xing Lei, Chairman of the Beijing Guanghua Design Development Foundation; Zhou Peng, Chief Representative of the HKTDC Xi'an Office; Liu Di, Honorary Chairman of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Innovation Design Alliance and CEO of MCJ Design; and Zou Zhuoming, Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Interior Design Association. Together, they witnessed and officially launched this major design event. More than 100 experts and scholars from universities including Xi'an Technological University and Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, together with industry leaders, renowned designers, and officials from relevant provincial and municipal departments, also gathered to witness this important moment.

Representatives from across sectors held in-depth exchanges around the theme of 'injecting new momentum into urban development through the power of design.' A representative of the Xi'an Expo Affairs Center noted that this year's Design Week aims to activate Xi'an's innovation genes, cultivate new 'design+' business forms, and bring strong momentum to urban construction and industrial development.

At the 'Service Design Conference: Xi'an Dialogue,' Xing Lei cited the Old Steel Mill Creative Park and Laocaichang Historic District as examples, praising Xi'an's use of service design thinking to 'preserve everyday vitality and weave a trendy lifestyle.' Wang Yanhua encouraged all designers with the words: 'Every step you take may be one giant step toward changing the world.' Liu Guanzhong and several other experts then delivered keynote speeches covering the underlying logic of design, frontier exploration, and the integration of culture, commerce, and tourism, offering practitioners inspiration for cross-disciplinary practice.

East-West Dialogue: Creative Forces from the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong Move Westward

Among the Design Week's dialogue series, the 'Dialogue with Hong Kong' roundtable attracted particular attention. As a representative of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area's innovation design community, Alliance Honorary Chairman Liu Di joined several leading designers from the Greater Bay Area, bringing forward-looking ideas to the discussion. Together, they explored how Hong Kong design's strengths in international vision, IP commercialization, and trend sensitivity can connect with Xi'an's profound cultural heritage and broad market potential.

This session not only reinforced the theme of 'East-West Dialogue,' but also marked a substantive step forward in design-industry collaboration between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Xi'an. Through high-level dialogues of this kind, design forces from both regions are expected to achieve deeper two-way empowerment in areas such as cultural IP translation, technology integration, and joint market development.

Diverse Exhibitions: Making Creativity Visible, Tangible, and Interactive

• From reimagining intangible cultural heritage to tech-driven designer toys, from AI interpretations of Tang poetry to design-led lifestyle aesthetics, this year's Design Week showed ingenuity in every detail:
  
• 'Poetic Charm and Splendid Treasures,' a Tang poetry visual design exhibition, reinterpreted the classics through contemporary design language.
  
• 'Qin Bricks and Han Tiles,' an intangible cultural heritage art exhibition, presented the modern vitality of traditional craftsmanship.
  
• 'Machine Crowd: Trend Toy Creation Field' brought together cutting-edge designer-toy creations and drew strong interest from younger audiences.
  
• 'A Decade in One Moment,' an urban renewal special exhibition, systematically reviewed Xi'an's design practices in urban revitalization.
  

A Four-Day Event Injecting a 'New Key' into Urban Innovation

During the Design Week, a series of major events will continue to take place, including 'Xi'an's Power in Urban Renewal,' 'Xi'an-Nanjing Twin-City Dialogue,' 'Unconventional Design Thinking,' and the 10th Xi'an Urban Renewal Conference. Leading figures from more than 20 creative cities and regions, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou, will continue to share frontier insights, using sustained intellectual exchange to offer Xi'an a 'new key' to urban innovation.

When the innovation engine of the Greater Bay Area starts moving, 

and when Hong Kong's trend-setting design moves westward to meet the deep cultural power of the thousand-year ancient capital of Xi'an, 

this becomes more than an industry event. It is also an experiment in design-driven urban development.

With 'Dialogue' as its medium, the 3rd Xi'an Design Week is writing a new chapter of industrial integration between East and West.