As Schilksee is located outside of the inner city and most sailing competitions take place yet further out, only some races – mainly of smaller boat types – can be viewed from shore, namely from along the Kiellinie at the west coast of the Bay of Kiel.

While Kiel Week started out as a ship racing championship, it has long since become a large festival with many popular bands playing on public stages.

Many of them spend the week doing day tours out of Kiel, thus berthing much more in view of the festival visitors than the racing boats at Kiel-Schilksee.

It was the first large gathering of tall ships since the time of the windjammers, and its success led to the annual Parade and to the foundation of the first sail training organization in Germany (Clipper DJS).

Among other things, the following graphic artists designed for the Kiel Week: Ernst Irmler (1953), Anton Stankowski (1962), Hans Hillmann (1964), Michael Engelmann (1965), Bruno K. Wiese (1971 & 1982), Rolf Müller (, 1972), Otto Treumann (1975), Ruedi Baur (1986), Rosemarie Tissi (1990), Hans Günther Schmitz (1992), Christof Gassner (1993), Siegfried Odermatt (1994), Barbara & Gerd Baumann (1995), Wim Crouwel (1998 ), Fons M. Hickmann (2002), Klaus Hesse (2006), Markus Dressen (2007), Peter Zizka (2008), Henning Wagenbreth (2009), Andrew and Jeffrey Goldstein (2010), Melchior Imboden (2011) and Stefan Guzy and Björn re (2015).

The motifs are applied to many objects and almost all of these – mostly developed by the competition winner himself – applications reach after a short time collector status.