See the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026 unfold in the February issue, on sale now

Call it confirmation bias if you will, but as we were sending our annual Design Awards issue off to press towards the close of 2025, it felt as if the news cycle was mirroring our fascination with the way in which we absorb the world around us through the ideas and objects we create. In quick succession came word that Pantone had kicked up some political dust by prescribing white as its Colour of the Year. Next, the Trump administration ordered the replacement of the Calibri typeface on all State Department correspondence with Times New Roman in a blow to ocularly challenged screen-readers in particular and fans of sans serifs in general. Finally, a hippo-shaped home bar by French sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne broke the global record for a work of design when it sold for $31.4m at Sotheby’s in New York. This is all evidence, if it were needed, that aspects of design continue to agitate, aggravate and astound in equal measure – no mean feat when so much else in life appears to homogenise at an ever-faster rate.

Homogeneity is certainly not something that characterises our annual Design Awards, which launched in 2005. That year, Wallpaper* US director Michael Reynolds styled our story on Miami, winner of Best City; 20 years later, we return to the US to mark a fresh imperative to make Detroit great again through a series of ambitious cultural and architectural projects.

The Motor City is the winner of one of four cross-disciplinary categories given special attention: in addition to City of the Year, our Launch, Designer and Life-enhancer of the Year categories underline the central role that innovation, imagination and inspiration play in our lives, celebrated in the remarkable way in which London’s V&A East Storehouse (said launch) is rethinking the museum model, and the degree to which sauna (life-enhancers don't come hotter) has entered the vocabulary of all but the most cursory of pleasure seekers.

Packed into this issue are the latest and greatest examples of forward-thinking design in the worlds of architecture, art, beauty, fashion, interiors, tech and travel – as always, a measured mix of the zeitgeisty and the downright quirky, made vital by the extraordinary minds of those who help bring them into being. Not least design studio Formafantasma, which took on the task of producing this year’s award – a flat-packed tribute to ingenuity and flair that we feel encapsulates the achievements of all our worthy winners.

Bill Prince, Editor-in-Chief

The February 2026 Design Awards issue of Wallpaper* is available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 8 January 2025. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today