The North Face has released the Universal Collection, a line of camping equipment designed with accessibility in mind, which won a spot in Fast Company's 2026 Innovation by Design Awards. The project traces back to 2017, when the brand's first disabled sponsored athlete, ski mountaineer Vasu Sojitra, began pushing the company to rethink gear design for people with different physical abilities.
Fast Company named the North Face's Universal Collection as the top design in its 2026 Innovation by Design Awards for North America. The collection was developed in partnership with the disability community to adapt camping and outdoor gear so it's usable by people with a range of physical needs.
Design Bridge and Partners created Nordeste, a new destination brand meant to represent Brazil's nine northeastern states as a cohesive region while preserving each state's distinct cultural identity. The project has been named winner of the Best Design Latin America category in Fast Company's 2026 Innovation by Design Awards, moving past the region's traditional beach-and-sunshine tourism imagery.
Fast Company's 2026 Innovation by Design Awards named its Latin America category winner, with Nordeste by Design Bridge and Partners taking top honors. The project is a destination brand unifying nine Brazilian states in the Northeast under one flexible visual identity that highlights regional cultural diversity rather than typical tourism imagery.
Yoto's Mini, a screen-free portable audio player for children, has been named winner of the Best Design Europe, Middle East, and Africa category at the 2026 Innovation by Design Awards. The device lets kids listen to stories and music without a screen or algorithm-driven recommendations, relying instead on physical cards to select content.
Australian fintech Zeller has released Terminal 2, an affordable all-in-one point-of-sale device built and designed domestically. The product won Best Design in Asia Pacific at the 2026 Innovation by Design Awards, recognized for reimagining payment hardware as a consumer-facing product rather than purely functional equipment.
Fast Company's Innovation by Design Awards named Conway's Arcade, built by Special Guest X for Google, the winner in its artificial intelligence category. The project is an AI-driven arcade cabinet that continuously generates new variations of classic games such as Space Invaders and Breakout, alongside a list of other honorees in the category.
Fast Company named the winners of its 2026 Innovation by Design Awards in the architectural design category, honoring buildings and interiors that address challenges in the built environment. The top prize went to UC Berkeley's Grimes Engineering Center, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an adaptive-reuse project featuring a new seismic-responsive structural system aimed at improving earthquake resilience.
Fast Company's Innovation by Design Awards named its 2026 advertising and marketing winner: '1837 Tiffany Blue Conservation,' created by agency L&C for Tiffany & Co. in partnership with Pantone. The campaign repurposes Tiffany's signature blue color as a vehicle for promoting ocean conservation, and the awards also recognized several other honorees in the category.
New Orleans nonprofit MakeGood has developed a 3D-printing platform to produce pediatric mobility devices at a fraction of traditional manufacturing costs. The initiative was named a winner in the accessible design category of Fast Company's 2026 Innovation by Design Awards for its work helping children with mobility-limiting conditions.
Fast Company named the winners of its 2026 Innovation by Design Awards in the accessible design category. Make Good's Toddler Mobility Trainer, an open-source device that can be fully produced with 3D printing, took the top honor, alongside a list of other recognized projects in the category.
New research by Benjamin Shultz, published by think tank Agora Digitale Transformation, analyzed about 160 websites hosting nonconsensual deepfake sexual content and found 138 women members of parliament from 22 EU countries were referenced or depicted, compared with just nine men. The study covered over 5,800 national lawmakers across the EU, with politicians from Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and France most frequently appearing.