Calling all motion designers! DEMO Festival is going global

Since its inaugural festival in 2019, DEMO Festival – a motion design-focussed event, in which public screens are taken over by moving image works – has quickly gained a reputation for its showcase of talent, and ingenious use of public space. Now, ahead of its largest event to date on 30 January 2025, its curators are inviting the motion design community to submit their works for showcase.

In its first edition, DEMO (founded by leading motion designers in their own right, Studio Dumbar/DEPT®) screens usually saved for advertising in Amsterdam were subject to a 24-hour takeover from the design community. 400 works were displayed in total, by 253 creatives, hailing from 37 countries. An incredible creative feat already, in 2022 the festival expanded to take over the majority of screens across The Netherlands – expanding content to over 800 works, by 400+ designers and a global reach of 54 countries.

Not content with this already mammoth display, DEMO is expanding into a “global cities edition” for 2025, reaching Antwerp, Barcelona, Brussels, Cardiff, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Leeds, Madrid, Milan and Vancouver. Its Dutch presence will also remain strong, with takeovers scheduled in Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Tilburg, Utrecht, and the festival’s original home of Amsterdam. The playfulness of motion design will be seen on public screens across these major cities, down to their underground systems – from Metro Line 5 in Barcelona, to the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. Screens have been donated thanks to DEMO’s OOH partners, Global, adtrackmedia and blowUP media.

For Studio Dumbar/DEPT®, DEMO is an opportunity to showcase the breadth of talent working in motion design today. From work championing character design or typography, to textural pieces and ambient experiments, all styles of motion are welcomed – whether you’re an emerging animator or established studio. In the wise words of Studio Dumbar/DEPT®’s creative director, Liza Enebeis: “Motion brings design to life, and DEMO is a platform to celebrate the endless possibilities of creativity in motion. It’s an honour to give a platform to designers from all corners of the world and to share their creativity with everyone in the cities where we’ll be hosting the festival.”

Submissions for DEMO are now open until 31 August 2024. You can enter your work directly via its website to then be considered by the festival’s regular curators – some of the most exciting names in motion and design themselves. This includes motion designer Connor Campbell, co-founder of the recently launched Daisy Chain studio; Niels van der Donk and Vikki Young of 3D animation studio Yonk; creative coder Tim Rodenbröker; multidisciplinary artist Koos Breen, and Dumbar’s Liza Enebeis. “I’m curious to see how people express themselves in motion this year,” adds Liza, “and which boundaries they break.”

Read more about how to enter DEMO here, or for an idea of what to expect, check out our 2023 run down of the festival.