The aim of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is to show and enable people to experience the many-faceted creative work in the fields of product, furniture and industrial design, but also positions of experimental design. After two successful festivals in 2007 and 2008, also this October an exquisite and colourful programme of events will be awaiting the visitors. Design has been and is an important field in the production of culture: it shapes our material culture, our everyday life and our consumer world, it influences our lifestyles and fashions and most fundamentally our aesthetic sense and judgements. This wide-ranging impact is a reason both to celebrate design and to examine it critically, and VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has made both of these its mission.