DesignPhiladelphia, one of the city's most beloved annual institutions, returns October 9-17 with a slate of immersive, invigorating events. Engineered to showcase the role of design in everyday life, the festival will highlight the work of 450 of Philadelphia's most inventive thinkers and organizations in more than 120 events -- the majority of which are free. 

This week, DesignPhiladelphia released a schedule of its signature events for 2014; you can check out the full schedule here.

Here are a couple of our picks:

Fast Forward >> Philly
Friday, October 10. 
6 - 8 p.m.

We've heard about Philly hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, architecture designed by the people, a CITYWIDE collective art exhibition, Silicon Philly, even a new Philly flag. What else awaits our great city of Philadelphia? Find out at the third installment of Fast Forward » Philly! With another lineup of emerging voices from the city's design community, each presenter will Fast Forward » through 20 slides, 20 seconds each, and you'll be the first to know what's next for the city.

Tour of The Rail Park
Tour 1: Saturday, October 11, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Tour 2: Sunday, October 12, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Tour 3: Sunday, October 12, 3 - 5 p.m.
Tour 4: Monday, October 13, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Join Friends of the Rail Park for a street level tour of Philadelphia's next great public space. Traversing through Fairmount, Spring Garden, Callowhill, Chinatown North and West Poplar, the trips will follow the three mile elevated and submerged route of the former Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads, visiting Phase One, slated to begin construction in 2015. All tours are free and open to the public; space is limited and a ticket is required.

Social Design: A Salon for the New Kid in the Design Neighborhood
Sunday, October 12
7 - 8:30 p.m.
Registration required

The emerging field of Social Design focuses on creating sustainable social impact in diverse sectors and communities through co-creative and collaborative tactics and strategies. Local leaders in the Social Design field welcome you to a discussion about achieving change through community-based design projects. Speakers include Alex Gilliam (Public Workshop/Department of Making + Doing), Jeremy Beaudry (The Think Tank that has yet to be named/University of the Arts) and Aviva Kapust (Village of Arts and Humanities).

For the full line-up, to register, and purchase tickets to all events, visit designphiladelphia.org. New for 2014, the online event calendar allows registered users to create their own personalized schedules, export it to iCal or Google calendar, or print it out for easy access. Connect via twitter @designphilly using #decadeofdesign, or visit facebook.com/designphiladelphia and pinterest/designphilly. Printed Festival Event Guides can be found at various locations including the Center for Architecture and AIA Bookstore (1218 Arch Street); the Philadelphia Art Alliance (251 S. 18th Street); the Crane Arts Building (1400 N. American Street); AIGA Space (72 North 2nd Street); and NextFab (2025 Washington Avenue).