Later this month, a corner of Johannesburg’s design district will become a meeting point for a wide range of people working across the country’s creative industries. On March 24-25, the conference Making It! returns to the Kramerville Design District, marking 25 years of work by the Craft and Design Institute in supporting South Africa’s craft and design sector.
When the institute began in 2001, it worked with just 63 makers. Today, that network includes more than 8,300 creative enterprises across all nine provinces. The sector has grown significantly in that time, and the questions surrounding it have shifted. Conversations that once centred on participation and representation now increasingly focus on scale, sustainability and how creative work becomes viable enterprise.
Making It! sits squarely within that shift. The two-day gathering brings together designers, founders, strategists, academics and cultural thinkers to examine what it takes to grow a creative business. The emphasis is less on inspiration and more on practical insight: how creative practices move from small studios into structured companies, how brands evolve beyond niche recognition, and how independent practitioners connect with larger markets and systems.
The speaker list reflects the breadth of the ecosystem that now surrounds design and craft. Radio host and cultural commentator Shado Twala will serve as MC, while artists, entrepreneurs and researchers bring perspectives shaped by their own work. Ceramicist Andile Dyalvane, whose sculptural forms draw on Xhosa cosmology and the land, joins the programme alongside Mozambican textile designer Wacy Zacarias and fibre artist Khensani Mohlatlole, whose research explores African fashion histories and material culture.
The business side of the creative economy also features prominently. Nosipho Maketo-van den Bragt, CEO of Chocolate Tribe, will speak about the growing global presence of African animation and visual effects, while brand strategist Heidi Brauer and Bielle Bellingham of Chommies bring insights into brand development and creative positioning. Digital entrepreneur Dave Duarte, founder of Treeshake, and fintech founder Thulani Masebenza of Bloo Money will address the digital and financial infrastructures increasingly shaping the sector.
Alongside them are voices working in heritage, architecture and cultural research, including anthropologist Motsane Seabela of the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History and architect Prof Emmanuel Nkambule of the University of Johannesburg. Their presence reflects a growing recognition that design does not operate in isolation but intersects with policy, urban development, cultural memory and material economies.
For the organisers, the aim is to create a space where those different strands can meet. The programme mixes talks, conversations and documentary screenings, alongside informal moments where participants can compare experiences across disciplines.
For many working in South Africa’s creative industries, Making It! functions less as a traditional conference and more as a moment of reflection on where the sector finds itself. Twenty-five years after the CDI’s founding, the conversation has clearly moved beyond whether creative work matters. The question now is how far it can go.
The conference takes place at Level Three in Sandton, with an evening reception hosted at Katy’s Palace Bar in the heart of the Kramerville Design District.
Virtual and in-person tickets are available through Quicket, with discounted access for members of the Craft and Design Institute. Find the full programme here.
