From Batumi to Tbilisi: Ad Black Sea Launches First-Ever Tbilisi Design Festival

Georgia’s Ad Black Sea Festival is launching the Tbilisi Design Festival on May 1, 2024, which will become an annual event focusing entirely on the components and creativity of the design industry.

Established in 2015, the Ad Black Sea Festival is a creativity hub for international guests, specifically those in the Caucasus region. Executive Manager Tamar Tsintsadze has been with Ad Black Sea since it opened its doors nine years ago. She says the capital is important for making impressions on guests and showing off Georgia, so the team wanted to make Tbilisi a regular part of the festival.

“Tbilisi has a unique vibe, and for us at Ad Black Sea, it’s not just an advertising festival, but somehow a tool to invite these great professionals from around the world and show off our country,” Tsintsadze tells GEORGIA TODAY.

The annual Ad Black Sea festival in Batumi is three days long, and focuses on advertising and marketing, while taking inspiration from other fields such as literature and film. Tsintsadze explains that the festival consists of multiple parts, including panel speakers, workshops, masterclasses, evening parties, and more.
As Ad Black Sea grew over the years, she says the team thought it was best to expand their platform and dedicate another festival completely to design, since it is a large industry that also encompasses the creativity and advertising fields.

The Tbilisi Design Festival will be in the same style as Ad Black Sea, featuring guest speakers, interviews, various activities, and more. However, since it is focused on design, Tsintsadze tells us this year’s topics will cover communication design, print, illustration, user experience design, graphic design, and a broad understanding of the concept. As this festival continues and grows into a larger event, she explains that other design concepts will be integrated, including interior design and architecture.

“Everybody, especially in Georgia, is looking forward to this very important date,” Tsintsadze says. “Some people even call it the ‘new year of our industry,’ they are so excited about it.”

What most people waiting in anticipation for with this upcoming festival, she notes, is guest speaker Stefan Sagmeister. An Austrian native and New York resident who has won nearly every major design reward, among them two Grammys, who has been a TED speaker too many times to count, and is an author, Sagmeister will be delivering the keynote speech at the first-ever Tbilisi Design Festival and presenting his recently published book, ‘Now is Better,’ in partnership with the newly opened Design Institute.

According to Tsintsadze, although Sagmeister wrote the book, it is not design-oriented. Rather, it shows his philosophical and optimistic view of the world, with his perspective of long-term thinking. Tsintsadze said he has this concept that everyone thinks what is happening in the world is bad, but if people changed their perspectives and thought about the long term, they would realize that what’s happening now isn’t actually so bad.

“Stefan is someone we’ve been dreaming of bringing to our festival since the first year we were founded as Ad Black Sea. He’s always been at the top of our list,” Tsintsadze says. “He’s also very excited to come to Georgia because he’s always wanted to visit our country.”

The team chose a program idea and picked the selected speakers based on the theme. This year the theme will revolve around “behind-the-scenes” of design and the steps of the creative process rather than the end product. Tsintsadze explains that the interviews with guest speakers will focus on diving deeper into this topic by asking about obstacles they face during the creative process, how they start creating designs, and more.

The event will be held at TEC, an old factory in Chugureti, an old district of Tbilisi. The venue has no infrastructure, so the team will create everything from scratch. Tsintsadze said the one-day event will also include a tour of the city led by a local guide, who will explain the buildings, facades, street yards, history of the district, and how governmental decisions over the years have affected the current architecture.

Hosting guests from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Armenia, Ukraine, and other countries, Ad Black Sea hopes to present more big-named speakers in the coming years. Since the festival was always held in Batumi, Tsintsadze said it was hard to invite guests from faraway countries because they would have to book flights and often take various connections to get to the venue. They hope the Tbilisi Design Festival will assist in this area, so everyone can explore Georgia.

“Once [guests] come, they leave the country with so many emotions,” Tsintsadze tells us. “They are so surprised at what they see here that they become our ambassadors by talking about Georgia and our festival. Then these guys recommend us to other speakers.”

Even though the Tbilisi Design Festival is dedicated to design, this topic will still be included in the Ad Black Sea Festival in Batumi this September. The team has already started planning next year’s Tbilisi Design Festival for the spring, and hope it will be more than just a one-day event. Those in attendance will also have the opportunity to purchase an autographed version of Sagmeister’s book. Tickets can be found on the festival’s website page.

By Shelbi R. Ankiewicz