Happy Birthday to .Design!

Oh, they grow up so fast!

It’s been an exciting few years working to get .design domains out to the public, and today marks the second year since .design entered general availability. In its brief two years, .design has grown to +63,000 registrations. We’ve come a long way from our first steps (and first registrations), with amazing and innovative use cases, including corporate design hubs, creative studios, portfolio websites, and passion projects of all kinds. As .design begins its “terrible twos,” Top Level Design hopes to see continued healthy growth and expansion into new markets.

Let’s take a look at a few of the .design milestones we’re celebrating:

AIA 17, an eye opening industry conference

AIA 17, an eye opening industry conference

For the first time, our team participated at The American Institute of Architects’ annual conference and expo as an exhibitor. It was held in Orlando, Florida from April 27 -29th.  It was truly eye opening as one of the largest conferences and most impressive expo floors we’ve ever seen. Hundreds of exhibitors showcased interior furnishings and products, lighting systems, smart building technologies and new sustainable options.

As the operator of the .design domain, we were excited to introduce the domain to architects, interior designers and other creative professionals who would benefit from having a .design domain. Although we didn’t have as glamorous a booth as some of the largest exhibitors ;-), the reactions and feedback we received were encouraging, especially the comments from young architects and design students.

Design teams using Medium to create a .design site

Design teams using Medium to create a .design site

I’ve previously pointed to major corporate use cases of .design, like facebook.design and airbnb.design. One of the things that is so interesting about these sites is that they are content rich and full of a variety of resources, from videos to interviews to design manifestos to event promotion and individual contributions from team members.

Now, we’re seeing an ingenious corporate use case that creates just as interesting a destination with far less work on the actual website itself. The goal is largely the same, to focus and raise the voice of a company’s design team and bolster their recruiting, but the medium (ha!) is different.