Chiang Mai Design Week 2025 embraces the theme LOCAL PLUS, celebrating the strength of Northern creativity and transforming the plus sign into a symbol of boundless collaboration and infinite possibility.

To embody this spirit, the festival’s identity bursts with vivid colors and layered local references that gather in a joyful rhythm of celebration.

CEA Chiang Mai spoke with Nu Nimsomboon and the slowmotion team about the creative process behind this bold visual identity, a tangible expression of LOCAL PLUS.

“We began by reinterpreting what Chiang Mai is. It is not only craft or slow living. The city is alive, contemporary, and constantly blending the old with the new,” said slowmotion.

That essence aligns with LOCAL PLUS, a theme that moves beyond the sign itself. The concept draws from mathematical symbols: adding value, multiplying creativity, subtracting waste and environmental impact, and dividing to share knowledge and space.

This vision unfolds in a multi-dimensional logotype, as if beams of radiant color are cast forward, with Northern Thai motifs woven into the key visual.

“Some elements are instantly recognizable, like hill tribes and old city walls. Others are more abstract, such as pairing the traditional fingernail dance with the energy of 70s rock guitars. It shows that Chiang Mai is not only a tradition, but also a surprise and layers of discovery,” they explained.

Diversity became the central muse, a portrait of a city where heritage and modernity breathe together. The design embraces this variety through abstract, rounded forms inspired by math symbols, evolving into new creative equations for the festival.

“Once we had the symbols, we asked ourselves how they might serve. Since the theme is diversity, we embedded graphic elements within each symbol to express that richness, while still echoing their mathematical roots.”

For slowmotion, this diversity was both the delight and the difficulty: choosing what to hold on to, what to release, and how to make every element resonate together.

“We wanted this year’s key visual to feel unlike the years before, even its opposite. Chiang Mai is not only a slow and sleepy town. So much is happening here. We wanted to capture that intensity.

Beyond aesthetics, we hope this design invites people to see Chiang Mai with new eyes, both familiar and unexpected, sparking curiosity while staying rooted in the city’s unique local charm.”

This is LOCAL PLUS, through the imagination of slowmotion. How do you see LOCAL PLUS? Come and discover it at Chiang Mai Design Week 2025, from December 6 to 14, across Old Town, Chang Moi, Tha Phae, and throughout the city.