SXSW 2025: 16 Sessions for Design Enthusiasts
February 18, 2025
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SXSW is right around the corner! Taking place March 7-15 in Austin, Texas, the conference brings together design leaders, industry experts, and creative brands that are sure to inspire professional designers and design enthusiasts alike.
Here at the Heywood Hotel, creative, thoughtful design is the hallmark of our property and each of our seven guest rooms. We offer award-winning architecture and feature local Austin artists, makers, and textile designers throughout our hotel.
If you’re a design enthusiast like us, we think you’ll enjoy this list of design-related sessions taking place during the conference. From design thinking to AI tools to unconventional research methods, these sessions and expert panels cover everything designers need to know about the industry in 2025 and beyond.
SXSW 2025 Design Sessions
1. Crafting Culture: How Experience Designers Shape Our World
Date: Mar 9, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
Attractions and destinations aren’t just places—they’re vibrant cultural hubs that influence and bring communities together. At the center of crafting these experiences into cultural narratives and community identities are experience designers and creators. Hear from the creative and cultural leaders behind experiences like The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Airbnb Experiences, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Las Vegas Raiders Allegiant Stadium Tour, and communities like the World Experience Organization — all of whom are working to stimulate local economies and strengthen community bonds.
2. Brand = Product: Cohesive Experiences Through Design Systems
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, the seamless integration of brand identity and product design is crucial. Modern consumers no longer see the brand and product as separate entities; the brand is the product. This panel explores the intricate relationship between brand and product, highlighting how design systems enable cohesive user and brand experiences. Join industry leaders and design experts as they delve into the strategies, challenges, and successes of creating, implementing, and operating a unified design language that bridges the gap between brand vision and product execution.
3. The Future of Brand Experience Design: How Brands Will Be Lived, Felt and Shared
Date: Mar 9, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
The future of experiential brand design is shifting from storytelling to story-living, as audiences seek deeper, participatory, and emotionally resonant experiences. This session unveils findings from the Soon Futures Studies Report, exploring how technology, insights, and cultural shifts will reshape brand interactions. From augmented moments to regenerative experiences, this session will showcase scenarios and case studies revealing how brands will blur boundaries with culture and environment in the next decade.
4. Using Neuroscience to Design Brands We Love
Date: Mar 11, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
In today’s hyper-connected world, emotional connections are the currency of consumer decision-making. A compelling story can redefine how we perceive, trust, and engage with brands—whether it’s grabbing a snack or making life-changing healthcare choices.
Join a panel of experts in neuroscience, storytelling, and design as they unveil the hidden forces shaping the brand stories all around us. From immersive store layouts and breakthrough packaging to scroll-stopping social media campaigns, this sessions will explore how these strategies tap into both the individual mind and collective society.
This dynamic, example-packed session will spark fresh insights into how storytelling transforms brand engagement—and the everyday decisions that drive our lives.
5. Designing Architecture for Nature, Culture, and Joy
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 10:00am – 11:00am CT
Can architecture help connect our fragmented culture and address some of the most pressing challenges of our time from climate change to political division? This session will explore the art of designing connective places that harmonize with natural landscapes, honor local cultural contexts, and inspire joy and shared belonging in our communities. Vishaan Chakrabarti, an expert in sustainable and human-centered design, will share case studies, insights, and innovative approaches that prioritize ecology, celebrate difference, and elevate human experience. Join us to discover how architecture can foster a deeper engagement with the world and the diversity of the people around us through thoughtful, connective design.
Hot tip: Need help navigating the conference? Check out our searchable map of SXSW 2025 venues.
6. The Tech & Tools Designers Need to Thrive in an AI World
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 10:00am – 11:00am CT
Designers are often first to adopt new technology, but where is that technology actually creating impact for them? We surveyed hundreds of top designers to find out. In a conversation with leading AI and design experts, they will reveal proprietary data on how AI is transforming design workflows, what new possibilities it’s unlocking, and which emerging tools are gaining traction. Beyond the data, we’ll dive into the key skills software designers need to prioritize to future-proof their careers and elevate their craft in an AI-driven world.
7. Featured Session: Design in Tech Report 2025: Autodesigners on Autopilot
Date: Mar 9, 2025, 2:30pm – 3:30pm CT
As design on autopilot becomes reality through the latest features in Figma, Vercel, Adobe, and AI startups, the 2025 Design in Tech report explores how AI will turn designers into “autodesigners.” This shift—where designers train AIs to automate daily work—offers both challenges and opportunities. Reflecting on Muriel Cooper’s and William J. Mitchell’s pioneering work, we better understand our progress and future. As Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”
8. Emotive Futures: A Dive Into the UX of Emotional AI
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 2:30pm – 3:30pm CT
As technology advances, the lines between audience, creator, and machine blur. This session explores how AI agents, emotional feedback systems, and generative storytelling reshape interactive experiences. From conversational agents amplifying diverse voices to narratives shaped by real-time emotional data, it highlights the future of art, communication, and design. Attendees will gain a roadmap for crafting emotionally resonant, AI-driven experiences that redefine storytelling and human connection.
9. From “I Think” to “I Know”: Five Questions for Good Design
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 2:30pm – 3:30pm CT
As the world of creativity shifts to accommodate new and exciting workflows with generative AI, we must think critically and ask hard questions of our work. Implementing some key practices will transform the way we – as product leaders, designers, and researchers – approach product development so we can feel confident in our ability to reliably produce great experiences for our customers In this session, two professional design researchers will share five questions you must ask to empower you to drive alignment and present with certainty, all in the name of good design.
10. Sentient Design: AI and Radically Adaptive Interfaces
Date: Mar 9, 2025, 2:30pm – 3:30pm CT
Sentient Design is the already-here future of intelligent interfaces—AI-mediated experiences that feel almost self-aware in their response to user needs. Instead of treating AI as a tool, Sentient Design invites you to use AI as a design material: What does it mean to weave intelligence into an interface? Static presentation gives way to radically adaptive user experiences conceived in real time. This lively session gives you the framework and examples to create intelligent interfaces in your own practice—right now, today—building remarkable experiences with AI while contending with its risks.
11. LEGO, Theater, Sushi & Other Unconventional Research Methods
Date: Mar 9, 2025, 4:30pm – 5:00pm CT
How might LEGOs help us access subconscious beliefs? What could we learn from people pretending to be omniscient robots? Could a sushi chef really hold the key to creating a groundbreaking new tech product? Unconventional research methods can shape tech products in incredibly impactful ways. Insights from such studies have inspired Google Search’s designers and leaders to imagine different possibilities and solutions—crucial for any product team, but especially when the team manages a 25+ year-old product.
12. Dada for Dada: The Power of Absurdity
Date: Mar 10, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
Witness Andy Pearson, VP of Creative for Liquid Death, Meow Wolf co-founder Benji Geary, and Aaron Tichenor, aka Boyabaddie, descend into the joyous embrace of nonsense. In a world growing heavier by the minute, they thrive on the absurd, celebrate the uncomfortable, and share bold visions on digital platforms and in everyday life. From outrageous ideas that challenge norms to pushing boundaries in art and content creation, discover how absurdity fosters joy, distraction from bleak realities, and connections with audiences who resonate with creativity for creation’s sake.
13. Fail Again, Fail Better
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm CT
What if, instead of striving for success, failure was our goal? Insisting on failure, persevering in everything that seems wrong. There is always a moment in the creative process when doubt arises: Am I doing this right? Am I getting too tangled up? Should I start over? These are the questions that signal the moment in which we are about to fail better.
14. 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025
Date: Mar 7, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
Each year, MIT Technology Review reporters and editors assemble a list of the top breakthrough technologies that will change the world. This list is one of our most popular packages of the year.
Niall Firth will share the publication’s list of ten breakthrough technologies with the SXSW audience, explaining each one and how it will impact the way we live and work.
15. Brave New City: Design Through The Lens Of Science Fiction
Date: Mar 11, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
From Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Blade Runner to the silo in Hugh Howey’s novel Wool, science fiction has often represented cutting edge architectural design. For cities, imagining future urban environments requires an understanding that every place belongs to history, the land and our human spirit. An example includes designing equitable spaces through a study of utopian and dystopian principles. This session will delve into the ways literature and cinema intertwine with architecture to explore innovative solutions in the built environment and public spaces.
16. Featured Session: The Future of World-Building at Disney
Date: Mar 8, 2025, 11:30am – 12:30pm CT
Disney tells stories fans love, invites them into worlds they never dreamed possible and then makes those places real. Join Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro, Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Alan Bergman and special guests as they show the convergence of imagination, innovation and the future of experiential storytelling.
Stay Near SXSW 2025 Conference Venues
Want to stay near the conference? East Austin is the perfect neighborhood to stay in during SXSW. While much of the action takes place in Downtown Austin, the downtown scene can be a bit hectic and overwhelming. Choose the Eastside for a convenient, walkable location, that is calmer at night.
The Heywood Hotel is a MICHELIN-rated boutique hotel located in East Austin. We have the perfect hotel location for SXSW. We’re just one mile away from the Austin Convention Center, where most sessions take place, and within walking or biking distance to more than 100 venues like Stubb’s, Mohawk, Scoot Inn, Hotel Vegas at Volstead, Waterloo Park, Low Down Lounge, Lucky’s Brick Bar and more.
