The K-Design Award 2026 Awards Ceremony was successfully held on October 16 at the Grand Ballroom of SIGNIEL SEOUL. Bringing together 180 designers from around the world, the event became a celebration of shared achievements, new connections, and the true spirit of a global design community. At the heart of the occasion were the designers themselves. Despite their different languages, cultures, an...

  Prof. Yonghyuck Lee Editor-in-Chief, the Asia Design Prize       As technology advances, products gain more features. More sensors are added, operating modes become increasingly specialized, and connectivity with other devices continues to expand. Yet recent product design is moving in the opposite direction visually. Buttons are disappearing, screens appear only when needed, and machi...

Sangwoo Cho Senior Designer at Jabra, Denmark       We are living through an era of cutting-edge technological advancement. Artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous driving, and humanoid robots, once imagined only in science fiction, are becoming reality before our eyes at a pace far faster than expected. The emergence of Tesla’s Cybercab, an autonomous vehicle that has recently attracte...

Prof. Ryan Jongwoo Choi Professor at Hanyang University While working at a design studio in London or spending time with designers from global manufacturers, I often encountered questions about design. “What exactly is Korean design?” “Just as K-pop and K-dramas have distinct identities, is there a representative formal language or aesthetic that defines Korean industr...

  Sami Savatli Founder & Principal of SAVATLI Architects        “Founded in Istanbul in 2009, SAVATLI Architects is a multidisciplinary practice spanning interior architecture, furniture, and object design. With a strong focus on context, proportion, material, light, and craftsmanship, the studio creates contemporary environments that balance function, emotion, and artistic expres...

  Miki Orihara Chairperson, Japan Commercial Environment Design Association (JCD) / Jury Member, Asia Design Prize       “Miki Orihara is a Japanese interior designer and producer who developed her own approach to spatial design through field experience and independent study rather than formal design education. She established her own design office in 2011 and renamed the company ODO i...

  Antoine Besseyre des Horts Vice President of Design, Asia, LIXIL Global Design       “As Vice President of Design at LIXIL Global Design, Antoine Besseyre des Horts leads multicultural and multidisciplinary teams across regions, especially in Asia. His primary focus covers Asia Pacific and Greater China, while his work also connects Asian markets with other regions through the stewar...

Teruaki Ishimoto Founder / Principal Architect, CURIOUS DESIGN WORKERS Inc. “A storehouse more than a century old in Nagoya’s historic Shikemichi district has been reborn as a contemporary showroom that conveys the memory of place through light. In light wave, Teruaki Ishimoto of CURIOUS DESIGN WORKERS reinterprets the ripples of the Horikawa Canal as a continuous spatial mo...

The K-Design Award 2026 Awards Ceremony was successfully held on October 16 at the Grand Ballroom of SIGNIEL SEOUL. Bringing together 180 designers from around the world, the event became a celebration of shared achievements, new connections, and the true spirit of a global design community. At the heart of the occasion were the designers themselves. Despite their different languages, cultures, an...

  Prof. Yonghyuck Lee Editor-in-Chief, the Asia Design Prize       As technology advances, products gain more features. More sensors are added, operating modes become increasingly specialized, and connectivity with other devices continues to expand. Yet recent product design is moving in the opposite direction visually. Buttons are disappearing, screens appear only when needed, and machi...

Sangwoo Cho Senior Designer at Jabra, Denmark       We are living through an era of cutting-edge technological advancement. Artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous driving, and humanoid robots, once imagined only in science fiction, are becoming reality before our eyes at a pace far faster than expected. The emergence of Tesla’s Cybercab, an autonomous vehicle that has recently attracte...

Prof. Ryan Jongwoo Choi Professor at Hanyang University While working at a design studio in London or spending time with designers from global manufacturers, I often encountered questions about design. “What exactly is Korean design?” “Just as K-pop and K-dramas have distinct identities, is there a representative formal language or aesthetic that defines Korean industr...