Western Living Magazine
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Entries Are Now Open for the 2026 Designers of the Year Awards!
Designers of the Year Frequently Asked Questions
Photos: The Western Living Design 25 Finalists Party
The final countdown is on! Get your entries in by Monday, April 15.
Just over a week left to enter this year’s Designers of the Year Awards! There are nine categories in total—ranging from Interiors and Architecture to Industrial Design and Maker, which you can read all about right here.
For the category of Industrial Design, we’ve got a terrific panel of judges ready to assess your stellar work. Learn more about them below, and then make sure to get your entry in before 11:59 pm on Monday, April 15.
Questions? Drop us a line at [email protected]. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got!
Marjan van Aubel Studio is an award-winning innovative solar design practice that brings solar energy into daily life. The studio designs for a positive future through combining the fields of sustainability, design and technology. The studio is creating lasting change through solar design, integrating solar power seamlessly into our environments such as in buildings and objects, with the goal to make solar power more accessible for everyone. Their most notable works are Sunne, Current Table, Power Plant and the roof of the Netherlands Pavilion at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai.
Marjan has collaborated with global brands such as Cos, Timberland, Swarovski with the aim of accelerating the global energy transition to solar. She graduated from the Royal College of Art (Design Products MA) in 2012 and the Rietveld Academy DesignLAB (BA) in 2009.
Russell Greenberg is the founder of interdisciplinary design firm RUX Studios, and the creator of Stickbulb and Gradual. His work ranges from award-winning mosque master plans to water purification systems, porcelain statues, mobile devices, jewelry, vending machines and sustainable LED lighting.
After a decade of developing products and intellectual property for the likes of Unilever, Samsung, Mozilla Firefox and Pernod Ricard, Russell transformed his studio’s business model in 2017 into a platform to create and grow its own in-house brands.
Toby Barratt is a partner and co-Creative Director at Propellor Studio, a multi-disciplinary art and design studio based on Granville Island in Vancouver. Propellor’s work spans a range of disciplines from lighting and furniture design to exhibition design and sculpture. Common threads run through all of Propellor’s work; an interest in the forms and systems of the natural world, a passion for uncovering an idiosyncratic beauty in the objects that they design, and a desire to make work that will last well into the future.
While the core of Propellor Studio’s production is focused on their collection of lighting products, increasingly Propellor is designing and making sculptural work. Recent collaborations with architects and developers have given Propellor the opportunity to work at the scale of architecture, creating large suspended sculptural installations for both public and residential spaces.
The editorial team at Western Living loves nothing more than a perfectly designed space, place or thing: and we’re here to tell you about it. Email us your pitches at [email protected].
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