The Year of Handicrafts 2025

The Year of Handicrafts 2025 is an initiative implemented by the Ministry of Culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to celebrate the cultural value of handicrafts and highlight the creative industry, handicrafts, and creations of Saudi craftsmen globally, named after the approval of the Council of Ministers on September 17, 2024, to name 2025 as the "Year of Handicrafts".

The Year of Handicrafts 2025 aims to consolidate pride in the national identity and all the material and immaterial cultural elements associated with it, as one of the objectives of the National Culture Strategy, empower Saudi artisans, support their craft production, diversify the cultural economy, invest in opportunities that contribute to the promotion of national industries, raise awareness of the importance of handicraft-based professions and products, open windows of communication between Saudi craftsmen and the local and international community, showcase types of Saudi handicrafts, and enhance their presence and connection in the daily life of the community.  Saudi handicrafts include fashion, clay pottery, brass, woodworking, dyeing, sewing, goldsmithing, jewelry making, and blacksmithing.

In the Year of Handicrafts 2025, the Ministry of Culture seeks to enable Saudi craftsmen and women to share their creations in events, enhance the presence of Saudi handicrafts locally and internationally, and increase their contribution to the local economy through activities and events implemented by the ministry with its partners to celebrate this cultural element, cherish it as a cultural element representing the Saudi identity, and publicize its cultural, historical, civilizational, and economic value.Among the events:

On January 1, 2025, the Ministry of Culture launched the online platform for the Year of Handicrafts 2025, which contains a description of the initiative and its objectives, as well as a visual identity guide that contains guidelines and instructions for the use of the year's logo and identity.

The Handicrafts Year 2025 logo reflects the aesthetics of handicrafts through a design inspired by the craft heritage, which consists of the name of the cultural year written in Arabic and English, and is based on natural materials such as wood, clay, and leather, which are key materials in traditional handicrafts. The logo contains icons that highlight Saudi crafts products, such as: Metal crafts, pampering, and palm crafts, with original, simple, scalable and modifiable designs.

The Crafts Hackathon brings together creators and innovators from different fields to find specific innovative solutions for several areas related to handicrafts, ranging from marketing to design and production, launched on January 1,2025, and allowed those interested to register in the hackathon and submit their ideas, followed by the stage of sorting ideas and selecting those who qualify, and then launching the training camp, targeting craftsmen, designers, developers and programmers, provided that the number of team members per team is not less than three, not more than five, and the participant's age is not less than eighteen years.

The hackathon covers two main tracks: "Sustainability and Marketing", which focuses on enhancing the sustainability of the handicraft sector by finding solutions to develop modern marketing strategies that increase the spread of craft products, and "Design and Production", which focuses on finding innovative solutions that enhance the integration between design and implementation of the final product, to bridge the gap between design and production by finding compatible solutions between the initial design and the final product, developing tools and mechanisms that facilitate communication between designers and craftsmen, and promoting integration between the planning and production stages to ensure quality and adherence to the original design.

On March 11, 2025, Saudi Harf Company, a subsidiary of the Heritage Authority, signed a cooperation agreement with a business services company to support and develop the handicraft sector, empower Saudi artisans and support innovation in the implementation of distributions and gifts, with the aim of increasing cooperation with Saudi artisans, supporting them with resources to improve the quality of handicraft products, developing their skills, and enhancing cooperation in the fields of marketing and distribution, especially in activating digital platforms to display and promote handicraft products.

The “Lens and Craft” competition was launched as a virtual contest focused on documenting traditional crafts through the production of short videos that showcase the craft and its practice stages. The competition targets traditional craft practitioners in Saudi Arabia and social media content creators, encouraging them to produce visual content that documents Saudi artisanal heritage. Participants present their crafts in a short thirty-second video covering various types of handicrafts. The first-place winner receives 10,000 SAR, the second-place winner 7,500 SAR, the third-place winner 5,000 SAR, and participants ranking from fourth to tenth each receive 2,000 SAR.

The Fashion Authority organized the "Reviving Handicrafts in Saudi Fashion" initiative to promote handicrafts, to highlight traditional Saudi fashion, honor cultural heritage, support local creative talents, and employ traditional craft techniques to create a bridge between the past and present in the world of fashion. Participants had the opportunity to interact with specialized workshops, led by fashion experts, to integrate traditional methods with the latest design principles. 235 applicants participated in the competition, of which twenty-five contestants were selected for the final stage, and the winning designs were displayed as part of the Saudi Cup 2025.