The Cardiff Design Festival

London's not the only UK capital to host a design festival. While not as big, the Cardiff Design Festival is in its seventh year and has a growing reputation for the range of attractions it offers, and the quality of the work presented. It's also the home of The Best of Welsh Design Awards. So, if you love the kind of creative shindig festivals offer, mark 28 September to 13 October in your diary forthwith.

If you're a designer in Wales, or have Welsh-based clients, it might also be worthwhile entering your work into the Welsh Design Awards. Graduate submissions are invited from recent students from Wales or from Welsh based courses, too. The awards cover a range of design disciplines branding, interactive graphics, products, furniture, fashion, design thinking, urban design, social design and more. And the judges include some highly figures such as Richard Seymore of SeymorePowell, Glenn Tutssel of The Brand Union, and Mike Cleague of Carbon Studio.

Entries for The Best of Welsh Design close at midnight on 17 August, so if you want to enter hurry to the website for details.

The broader festival is co-ordinated by the Cardiff School of Art and design and has all sorts of elements to it this year, at venues around the city. The Charmed Illustration Exhibition is still accepting submissions, and begins on 26 September. Each day during the festival, Burning Red will be challenging creatives by sending out a phrase, and you'll have 20 minutes to make something based on the phrase and upload it to their Flickr group. The best work will be displayed at a pop-up gallery at the end of the festival. The same studio will be doing a podcast every day answering designers' questions.

On 10 October, Morgan Arcade Studio will have an open day, exposing their artists' work in illustration, graphic design, animation and more. There will also be book launches, more exhibitions, parties, and an array of workshops and talks. The festival's schedule is being added to all the time.