UPDATE
20 October 2026
Apple unveils the 2026 Designers of Tomorrow
Curated by Rodman Primack, the exhibition celebrates next-generation designers and how they integrated Apple products into their creative processes
Apple’s Designers of Tomorrow showcase, in collaboration with Design Miami, returns for a second year to spotlight the best in emerging talent, this time focusing on the theme of presence. Exploring what still holds the public’s attention amid the hurried pace of the modern world, designers Salem S. Charabi, Isabel Rower, Yoonjeong Lee, and Parafernalia (Genki Matsumura and Sebastián Zorrilla) crafted original works that invite reflection and aim to shift perspectives, engage the senses, and kindle curiosity.
“The theme was born from an honest recognition of just how busy our lives have become,” says Rodman Primack, the program’s curator and former longtime creative director of Design Miami. “In answering it, our designers demonstrate the power of objects to shape our physical environments and transform the human experiences that are possible within them.”
This year’s participants were handpicked 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 — for their storytelling, material innovation, and craft. Their work also highlights Apple’s dynamic role in the creative process, empowering designers at every level to capture, refine, and share their ideas with the world.
“Apple products continue to emerge as a through line so many extraordinary designers share, spanning disciplines, cultures, and processes,” explains Primack. “It’s a testament to how seamlessly these products and tools can integrate into any workflow.”
Ahead of the exhibition, which opens today at Hôtel de Maisons in Paris, the featured designers discussed their final pieces and the tools they used to bring them to life.
Salem S. Charabi
Egyptian Danish architect Salem S. Charabi blends old-world practices and the latest digital tools to create timeless pieces, and his Designers of Tomorrow project, The Eminence of Light, is no exception.
“Light is something we’re all instinctively drawn to, dating back to our earliest fires,” Charabi notes. “A lantern felt like the perfect encapsulation of this idea — a reflection of our capacity to light up the world.”
Charabi constructed the lantern’s veil from banana paper, applying Japanese methods to Egyptian palms. A delicate skeleton of meticulously stacked date palm fronds provides a satisfying contrast to the limestone base, which carries the traces of its own formation in its grooves. “Each strand is an octagon in profile — just 3 millimeters wide, split by hand, and carefully drilled,” Charabi explains. “The ends are then sharpened with a chisel to interlock.” Both the lamp and the audience’s attention are suspended by the same tension.
The resulting piece feels at once deeply natural and finely engineered. “For this project, every component had to be mapped out in detail,” Charabi says. “I sketched and did all the 3D modeling on my MacBook Pro. It was a complex process getting everything to fit just right — from the carving of the stone and the paper molds, down to the delicate base.”
Isabel Rower
By blending familiar forms with the unexpected, Brooklyn-based designer Isabel Rower cultivates presence and transforms everyday objects into active sensory experiences.
“The surface functions as a site for curiosity for me,” explains Rower. “People don’t always know what my pieces are made of, even as they’re touching them. It’s captivating when something that isn’t readily understood takes the form of a familiar object, like a table or teapot. It generates a kind of friction that brings you into immediate awareness of the objects we use every day.”
Rower’s Padded Chair 1860 draws on 18th- and 19th-century papier-mâché furniture and objets d’art. Its high-gloss finish stands in sharp contrast to the beaded fringe lining the seat.
Rower’s Padded Chair 1860 draws on 18th- and 19th-century papier-mâché furniture and objets d’art. Its high-gloss finish stands in sharp contrast to the beaded fringe lining the seat.
This intrigue is captured by her piece Padded Chair 1860, whose dramatic proportions draw on 18th- and 19th-century papier-mâché furniture and objets d’art. Its high-gloss finish stands in sharp contrast to the beaded fringe lining the seat. “The ceramic beads make a sound when brushed, drawing attention to both the material and its form, turning the unconscious act of sitting down into a mindful encounter,” Rower says.
Apple is a fixture throughout her creative process. “I use iPhone to capture quick thoughts and document my process, AirPods Pro to listen to music, and MacBook Pro to build my personal visual archive,” says Rower. “I’ll also use Keynote to juxtapose ideas and explore the relationship between images and text.”
Yoonjeong Lee
For Seoul-based designer Yoonjeong Lee, presence begins with quiet discovery. Through material transformation, she repositions overlooked background objects as central subjects.
Her piece New Form showcases a trio of worn-down pencils that have been given new life as nails. “I wanted to express this year’s theme through something small that we could all recognize — a shared experience,” Lee explains. “This story doesn’t carry some grand narrative. Instead, it takes a second look at the familiar to help you rediscover that which has been quietly forgotten.”
The base of the piece doubles as a wooden table and lamp. Sheets of paper serve as a lampshade, softly diffusing the light below, while the pencils hold them firmly in place. Applying her signature technique of building volume through repetition, Lee stacked roughly 5,000 thin sheets of veneer to construct the wooden base.
Lee’s focus on overlooked structural elements extends to her workflow, where she credits iCloud, AirDrop, and Notes for keeping her process seamless. “I often use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to create a sketch and jot down quick thoughts, but it’s how my devices connect to each other that makes them, and all their flexible features, truly useful,” she explains.
Parafernalia
Founded by Genki Matsumura and Sebastián Zorrilla, Parafernalia is a design studio that spans from Monterrey to Mexico City. The duo’s creative process is driven by constant dialogue, questioning, and iteration, often powered by FaceTime.
“For us, presence can take many forms,” says Matsumura. “We experience it with ourselves, with our surroundings, and with others. Our piece explores how all these expressions can coexist within a single object.”
Their piece MonoAmbiente 1 considers presence as both a personal relationship with one’s surroundings and a collective act. When closed, its acid-etched stainless steel surface forms a vast landscape. Its dual state invites the observer not only to examine it but to experience it. Once expanded, it reveals stools and a table, turning a distant scene into an intimate setting where two people can converse, play chess, or share a drink.
The project mirrors the studio’s workflow: two designers relying on iPhone and iPad Pro to trade sketches and track progress in real time. “We don’t share a physical desk. Our studio is iCloud,” Matsumura explains. By using Messages, FaceTime, and Procreate, they bridge the geographic gap. “Apple plays an integral part in how we think, design, and communicate. In many ways, it’s how we cultivate presence with each other.”
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