Apple returns with 2026 “Designers of Tomorrow,” spotlighting how creators use its tools to build presence

Apple has unveiled its 2026 Designers of Tomorrow showcase, a curation of emerging designers whose work is designed to explore how people slow down, pay attention, and reframe everyday life. The exhibition opens today in Paris at Hôtel de Maisons, returning for a second year in partnership with Design Miami and centered on a single organizing idea: presence, or the ability of objects, experiences, and attention to shape how humans feel and interact.

The program is curated by Rodman Primack, who is also described as the former longtime creative director of Design Miami. Primack said the theme grew from an “honest recognition” of how busy modern life has become, and he framed the project as a test of whether design can still hold the public’s attention. In Apple’s description, the participating designers use the company’s products as part of their creative workflows while also building physical works that aim to shift perspectives, engage the senses, and invite curiosity.

This year’s participants were selected by a jury of global design voices, including Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Fabien Cappello, Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Minjae Kim, Hun Chung Lee, Marion Mailaender, Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Jennifer Roberts, and Apple’s Molly Anderson. Apple said the selection process prioritized storytelling, material innovation, and craft, and it presented the resulting pieces as a way of showing Apple products across disciplines, cultures, and processes.

While the exhibition focuses on the designers and their individual works, Apple repeatedly positions its hardware and software as an “through line” in how those designers move from idea to finished form. In Primack’s description, Apple products function as tools that can integrate into any workflow, helping creators capture, refine, and share ideas. Ahead of the opening, several featured designers discussed both the final objects they created and the Apple tools used to bring them to life.

One of the featured projects comes from architect Salem S. Charabi, who described his work, The Eminence of Light, as a lantern built from traditional and digital methods. Charabi said the lantern’s concept was rooted in a shared human attraction to light, and he described using banana paper and Japanese techniques applied to Egyptian palm sources. Apple’s account details a “delicate skeleton” made from stacked date palm fronds positioned against a limestone base, with carefully machined, hand-drilled components designed to interlock.

Charabi tied the construction back to his process with a MacBook Pro, saying he sketched and did 3D modeling on the laptop as part of mapping each component to fit precisely. The piece is also described as balancing natural form and engineered precision, using the same kind of suspension to hold both the object and the viewer’s attention.

Brooklyn-based designer Isabel Rower contributed a piece called Padded Chair 1860, which Apple described as transforming familiar forms into sensory experiences aimed at pulling attention into the act of being present. Rower said she approaches the surface of objects as a “site for curiosity,” noting that people may not immediately understand what her pieces are made of even while touching them. In Apple’s description, the chair’s proportions reference 18th- and 19th-century papier-mâché furniture and art objects, with a high-gloss finish contrasting beaded fringe that produces sound when brushed to bring a viewer into immediate awareness.

Rower also tied the concept of presence to how she uses Apple technology during creation. Apple says she relies on iPhone to capture quick thoughts and document process, AirPods Pro to listen to music, and MacBook Pro to build a personal visual archive. Apple also highlights her use of Keynote to juxtapose ideas and explore the relationship between images and text as part of shaping the work before and during production.

Seoul-based designer Yoonjeong Lee presented New Form, which Apple frames as presence through quiet discovery and material transformation. Lee’s work reimagines three worn-down pencils as nails, described by Apple as a story that uses something recognizable rather than a grand narrative. Apple’s description says Lee embedded the theme into the object itself: the base functions as both wooden table and lamp, with paper used as a lampshade and the pencil forms holding the structure. Lee is quoted describing her technique of building volume through repetition, including stacking roughly 5,000 thin sheets of veneer for the base.

Lee also described an interconnected workflow using Apple devices. Apple says she credits iCloud, AirDrop, and Notes for keeping her process seamless, and she added that iPad Pro and Apple Pencil help her sketch and jot quick thoughts while the device-to-device connection makes the process more useful. Her comments position Apple’s ecosystem as an enabler of iteration rather than just a set of standalone tools.

Rounding out the set is Parafernalia, a design studio founded by Genki Matsumura and Sebastián Zorrilla, working across Monterrey and Mexico City. Apple describes the studio’s creative process as dialogue-driven iteration, often using FaceTime. Their piece MonoAmbiente 1 is presented as exploring presence as both a personal relationship with surroundings and a collective act. Apple says the work changes state: when closed, its acid-etched stainless-steel surface becomes a broad landscape, and when opened it reveals stools and a table, shifting the viewer from looking at a scene to experiencing it as an intimate setting for conversation, play, or sharing a drink.

In describing their workflow, Matsumura said the studio is built around iCloud rather than a shared physical desk. Apple says they use iPhone and iPad Pro to trade sketches and track progress in real time, and they rely on Messages, FaceTime, and Procreate as the communication and production backbone. The studio’s comments also echo Apple’s broader framing: Matsumura said Apple is integral to thinking, designing, and communicating and helps the studio cultivate presence with one another.

Apple did not provide financial terms, sponsorship amounts, or operational details about how the Designers of Tomorrow showcase is funded or how the selected designers are compensated. It also does not disclose whether the program includes any follow-on commercial commitments, retail plans, or intellectual property arrangements tied to Apple’s products. For now, the exhibition is presented primarily as a cultural platform, with the company emphasizing how its tools support creative exploration rather than announcing any new product releases.

Looking ahead, the most immediate announcement to watch is whether Apple and Design Miami expand the showcase beyond a single Paris presentation or replicate it elsewhere, and whether future editions continue to foreground specific themes such as presence while documenting the workflows behind each designer’s finished work. The exhibition’s emphasis on material experimentation and cross-device collaboration also suggests Apple intends to keep positioning the ecosystem as a practical creative infrastructure, not just a consumer technology stack.

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