As it marks 25 years of supporting SA’s makers and designers, the Craft and Design Institute (CDI) reflects on a journey that has helped reshape the country’s craft and design sector.
When the institute was founded, the landscape looked very different, with support for creatives focused more on short-term relief than on building sustainable businesses.
Policies and funding organisations had long identified the potential of craft to build the small business sector and create jobs. However they were stuck in a development funding approach that may have alleviated poverty but didn’t build sustainability or nurture and develop the existing wealth of talent and creativity.
That gap led to the establishment of the CDI (initially the Cape Craft and Design Institute). What began in a modest office at the then Cape Technikon (now the Cape Peninsula University of Technology) was guided by a clear belief: creativity could be work, business, and a meaningful contributor to the economy.
With early support from public sector champions who recognised the issue required sustained infrastructure and support and a properly funded intermediary, the CDI set out to help designers and makers build viable businesses.
The ambition was simple but serious: connect talent to markets, skills and networks, and build a sector that could sustain itself.
The institute aims to professionalise the sector and help craft and design companies innovate their product offerings, and improve their production processes.
It also strives to help them become proficient in using enabling technologies across all aspects of their businesses, strengthen overall management and operations, and create more wealth.
“The most important lesson we learnt in the early days — and which continues to be reinforced to this day — is that building sustainable businesses takes time; it’s a journey, not a destination.
“Life happens, and the secret to a business’s sustainability lies in the acumen, confidence, and agency of its driver. With a foundation of curiosity, a willingness to listen and learn and embrace mistakes, the magic happens,” says Erica Elk, CDI founding CEO.
Twenty-five years on, the impact is clear.
From a database of 63 in 2001, the CDI now supports a membership of more than 8,300 makers, designers and creative enterprises across all nine provinces, from rural towns to urban centres.
This community creates tens of thousands of jobs, generates hundreds of millions of rand in revenue, all while making the world more beautiful.
Over two and a half decades, this model has opened real doors. Local producers have showcased their work on global stages, from international exhibitions to key moments like the 2010 FIFA World Cup, 2014 World Design Capital, and, most recently, the G20 Summit.
SA design is travelling the globe, carrying stories of place, heritage and innovation. Many designers now recognised at home and abroad trace part of their journey back to the CDI.
Just as importantly, a clear pathway has emerged for the next generation, who see design not as a pastime or just a livelihood, but as a path to building global brands.
Making It! 2026 is the culmination of this work and the place where that momentum gathers.
From March 24 to 25, an exciting programme will unfold. Over two days in the Kramerville Design District in Johannesburg, designers who are making it, or just starting out making it, will meet with those who have made it.
They will encounter technologies and ways of making, thinking and creating that extend their craft, and investors, educators and policymakers will show up to listen.
Through focused conversations, practical exchanges, and live demonstrations, making and creating will take centre stage in a way that hasn’t happened in SA in the past five years.
Making It! 2026 offers a dynamic format designed to spark exchange, deepen skills, and forge the connections that shift trajectories. The older hands in the game will tell the newer ones that connections are everything.
The conversation begins by looking back as much as forward — heritage and craftsmanship sit alongside innovation, asking how tradition survives in fast-moving design economies and how materials, methods, and mindsets must evolve in a shifting world.
CDI doesn’t just look at outcomes and sales, it also honours the ancient rituals embedded in the practice of making through a series of Makeshops.
Craftspeople, innovators, and storytellers bring their work to life through conversation, observation, and film, creating moments of reflection that demand attention. It’s thoughtful, not performative; a space to listen, to question, and to see what making is today and what it must become tomorrow.
“We need human connection, we need each other,” says Elk. “The journey of an entrepreneur is hard and lonely – even more so for creative entrepreneurs who are often the first adopters and trendsetters. Gatherings like this are important moments to build connections, find collaborators, reflect, listen, and learn.
“They can be the most significant injection of power and energy that you don’t know you are missing. For 25 years, we have been purposefully creating these spaces through our monthly Creative Exchanges – and it’s such a milestone for us to be hosting a mega-version in Johannesburg to celebrate our work in this glorious city.”
Creativity does not thrive on talent alone. It needs systems, visibility, and investment (of time, money and belief). That belief matters now more than ever. SA faces deep economic challenges, particularly for young people and women.
At the same time, global demand for authentic, ethically produced design continues to grow, fuelled by a maker movement that encourages people of all ages to step away from screens and pick up new crafts. Craft and design sit at a powerful intersection of culture, commerce and identity.
And Making It! is never about a single breakthrough. It is about the consistent application of time, effort, love and passion — for the CDI as much as for the thousands of makers it nurtures and supports every day.
Tickets start at R850 for virtual attendance and R2,500 for in-person attendance over two days. CDI members receive a 20% discount on in-person tickets.
For more information, or to book your tickets for Making It!, visit making-it.org.za.
This article was sponsored by the Craft and Design Institute.
