Spectrum Tokyo Festival 2026
Overview
A two-day "music-festival-like" design festival hosted by the design community Spectrum Tokyo. Every talk is paired with an AMA dialogue, and simultaneous Japanese-English interpretation connects practitioners from Japan and abroad. The 2026 edition moved from its usual December slot to February, drawing 40+ speakers and 400+ attendees to the DMM.com offices in Roppongi.
Foundation
- Founded
- 2022
- Founder
- Started in December 2022 as the annual festival of Spectrum Tokyo, the design media and community founded by UX MILK creator Ryo Sampei at Flying Penguins Inc.
Born to give Japan's design community — which had drifted toward methodology-heavy discussions — a flat, festival-style venue centered on design diversity and cross-border dialogue.
Transition
- 2022 ウェブメディアSpectrum Tokyoが始動し、12月にDesign Fest 2022を初開催
- 2023 Spectrum Tokyo Festivalとして毎年12月開催が定着
- 2025 運営コミュニティが3周年を機に独立法人化
- 2026 開催時期を2月に移し、六本木DMM.comで開催（40名超登壇・3トラック30セッション超）
Voices
The session on criteria for staying simple as features grow was a standout learning.
Some companies attend once and come back as sponsors — a testament to the festival vibe and depth of dialogue.
Enjoyed the talks and sponsor booths and came away with new designer friendships (from Pon's report, in Japanese)
Sessions offered lessons on AI in design practice and organizational approaches to better experiences (from Koji Hanyu's report, in Japanese)
Stimulated by a workshop questioning generative AI's stereotyped depictions of disability and a talk on how trade-platform transparency turned logistics vendors into improvement partners, he resolved to build his own interview training program (from Goro Otsubo's Day 1 report, in Japanese)
At a shrine-themed booth, 192 visiting designers voted on what they value most, revealing far more designers committed to solving social issues than expected (from SMS Design's booth retrospective, in Japanese)
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