Jury Alumni

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  Scot Herbst

  Creative Director, Partner, Herbst Produkt

  2026 Lifestyle Accessories Jury Captain, 2026 Tools Jury Captain

  Scot is the Creative Director and Partner at Herbst Produkt, a design consultancy created with his father, American design pioneer Walter Herbst. The studio features a dynamic mix of work across consumer technology, healthcare and lifesciences, consumer packaged goods, furniture, and autonomous vehicles. From nimble startups to established Fortune 100 global brands their work coalesces a multidisciplinary team that includes ID, HF, UX, digital, brand, packaging, engineering and CGI,
  
  Over the years the team at Herbst has won numerous global design awards and been featured in design and business publications including The Wall St Journal, Business Week, Wired, Inc. and Fast Company and their designs have been showcased in MoMA and numerous design exhibitions. Today their diverse client/partner roster includes Google, Logitech, Brita, Crate & Barrel, Burts Bees, Dolby, the Home Depot, Clorox and others.
  
  In addition to his role at Herbst, Scot is also the Chief Product Officer at Slice Inc., an innovative brand of ceramic bladed hardware that Scot helped build and grow and was recently acquired.

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  Patricio Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Patricio “Pato” Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light. Patricio is a Los Angeles-based art director and filmmaker whose work explores the intersection of photography, film, and text. Since graduating from Cornell University, Patricio has worked in collaboration with Farm League, MACRO, and Tortoise.

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  Inigo Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Iñigo Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light.
  Iñigo self-taught designer constantly experimenting with new mediums from wood to neon all the way to concrete. He is driven by curiosity and the combination of nontraditional materials in new formats. He moved to LA back in 2016 to join a large technology company while simultaneously pursuing a creative profession in his free time. He worked for a furniture company before co-founding Casa Ysasi with his brother Patricio Ysasi in 2020.
  

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  Scott Hickman

  Creative Director, Coca Cola

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  Scott creates design-driven experiences and environments for the best-known brands in the world. He leads teams that specialize in experience design, digital media, architecture, place making, interactivity, environmental graphic design and fabrication to develop branded environments that are multi-sensory and nontraditional. Scott is a tech-savvy storyteller that connects brands to massive markets with immersive digital and physical interactions. His journey has taken him from boutique West coast studios to global East coast agencies, and he is currently the Creative Director for the World of Coca-Cola, a first-mover in branded spaces.

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  Nessim Higson

  Executive Creative Director, WeTransfer

  2021 Visual Communication Jury Captain

  Nessim Higson is the Executive Creative Director at WeTransfer, where he is in charge of the creative brand, identity, and visual language of the company. He was previously the Web Design Director for Squarespace helping oversee the continuing development of the platform and brand, and how it can be a leading force in championing creativity globally. He helped lead the charge on innovation within SQSP through helping establish their web concepts team and oversaw the rebrand of the company in 2019.
  
  Prior to joining Squarespace, Nessim lived and worked in Amsterdam for 6 years and has continued to run his independent studio IAAH / iamalwayshungry working with a range of clients such as Adidas, The Criterion Collection, DC Comics, TED, Google, and a wide range of global advertising and design agencies.
  
  Nessim is a firm believer that great communication can not only shift the economic marketplace but has a responsibility to contribute to the social fabric of society.

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  Alice Hines

  Writer

  2019 Built Environment Jury Member

  Alice is a writer in New York City. She contributes essays, criticism, features, and interviews to the New York Times, Bloomberg, and New York Magazine, and other publications. Alice also copywrites for fashion brands and startups.

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  Yuka Hiyoshi

  Designer, MillerKnoll

  2024 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Yuka is a Japanese industrial designer based in Michigan. She has over fifteen years of experience designing and consulting for companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She is lead designer at MillerKnoll’s Tailored Studio.

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  Hanah Ho

  Senior Art Director, The New York Times

  2021 Interaction Jury Member

  Hanah is a designer residing in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a senior art director at The New York Times, developing campaigns and visual identity for podcasts and audio. Previously she was at the branding and design agency Champions Design, and Hillary for America where she worked to elect the first female president. She is currently serving on the board of AIGA NY and is passionate about connecting designers with new opportunities and engaging in the design community. She holds a BFA in Communication Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

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  Phu Hoang

  Founding Director, MODU

  2020 Personal Accessory Jury Member

  Founding Director and studio alchemist, Phu Hoang and has led MODU since its founding in 2012. Along with Rachely Rotem, he was awarded the 2017 Founders Rome Prize in Architecture, since 1897 an annual prize to those ”who represent the highest standards of excellence in the arts and humanities.” Phu has led the design of many projects in MODU, including the Exhale art park and the Promenade retail and office center. They have also been awarded the Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York (2019) and the US-Japan Creative Artists fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (2018).

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  Alex Hochstrasser

  Founder & Designer, MOLUK

  2024 Toys & Play Jury Member

  Alex Hochstrasser is a Swiss designer and inventor and one of the pioneers of contemporary open-ended toys.
  
  He studied industrial design at the University of Art and Design in Zurich and worked for renowned design firms in Barcelona, San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo. In 2001, he launched his first toy, Bilibo. The open- ended play shell was an instant critical and commercial success, winning a TOTY and numerous other international awards. Alex continued his vision of analog, abstract play objects that encourage children to move and explore with MOLUK, a label he founded with his sister in 2011 - developing an iconic range of open-ended toys that all work together and complement each other. 16 MOLUK toys have won Germany's prestigious spiel gut® award for their unique design and outstanding play value. Alex's work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris, and has been featured in exhibitions at the Vitra Design Museum and MoMA New York.

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  Cas Holman

  Principal, Heroes Will Rise

  2023 Toys & Play Jury Member

  For two decades Cas Holman has been designing playthings and playspaces that encourage exploration, imagination, and collaboration. Through her company Heroes Will Rise, Cas creates intuitive toys that inspire creative, open-ended play, including the award-winning Rigamajig, a line of playful building kits used in schools and public spaces worldwide. An educator of 12 years and former Associate Professor of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Cas travels the globe to collaborate with thought and industry leaders in early education, curriculum design, public space, and childhood advocacy who share her passion for creating opportunities for child-directed free play. Her philosophy and approach to designing for play was recently featured in the award-winning documentary series “Abstract: The Art of Design” on Netflix.

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  Dian Holton

  Sr. Deputy Art Director, AARP

  2023 Visual Communication Jury Member

  Dian Holton is a senior deputy art director at AARP where she oversees creative for TheGirlfriend.com, Sistersletter.com and The Ethel. She routinely contributes art direction and design to AARP The Magazine and specifically cover stories and entertainment related. Her background includes book design, branding, retail installation, styling and footwear design. Her passions include education, philanthropy, fashion and pop culture.

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  Jenn Horonjeff, PhD

  Founder & CEO, Savvy Cooperative

  2023 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Jen Horonjeff, Ph.D., is a patient advocate and the Founder & CEO of Savvy Cooperative. She was named one of the 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur Magazine, alongside Elon Musk and Reese Witherspoon, for her work at Savvy, which helps companies equitably gather input and insights from diverse patients. Jen is passionate about patient co-design as she grew up with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and survived a brain tumor as an adult. She also holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Medicine and previously worked as a health outcomes researcher, human factors engineer, and user-centered designer, and an advisor to the FDA. Jen serves on the Board of Directors for The Sequoia Project, a non-profit focused on health data exchange, the Advisory Board of Trialbee, a clinical trial recruitment company, and numerous other committees to ensure the patient voice is included.

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  Demian Horst

  Programme Director - MFA Transportation Design, Umeå Institute of Design

  2016 Transportation & Mobility Jury Member

  Demian Horst is since 2009 Programme Director for Transportation Design at Umeå Institute of Design (UID), Umeå University, Sweden. UID provides one of the world’s most highly ranked design educations and Demian started in his current position as the youngest director for a masters programme in the history of the school. Prior to this he has worked several years at General Motors in Germany, had a strong cooperation with Saab Automobile during his master studies, developed applied research together with Volvo Truck Corporation and also dedicated a few years in his early career to designing busses and coaches. Demian holds an MA from UID in Sweden and a BA acquired in his native Brazil.
  
  At the Umeå Institute of Design he is also a member of the leadership group, holding strategic collaboration matters as his main responsibility. Being very aware of the importance that transportation has on quality of life, his task is to promote the generation of new knowledge on the subject and to continuously develop the best conditions to educate highly skilled, responsible and creative transportation designers for the industry of the future.

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  Will Howe

  Industrial Design Consultant

  2023 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  I am an independent industrial design consultant committed to bringing coherent vision and expert delivery to the development of hardware in connected and analogue spaces.
  Across different product scales, I’ve helped ambitious tech start-ups and some of the world's most prestigious brands, informing and elevating their business with robust strategic thinking and industrial craft.
  Notable outputs include high-profile civic projects such as the London Olympic Torch and the Elizabeth Line Train interior. I’ve explored future autonomous vehicle experiences with Honda, luxury consumer products with Axor Hansgrohe, and the world’s first fully integrated quantum computing system for scientific and commercial use - IBM Quantum System One.
  Most recently with Sky, I led the development of their core hardware proposition, culminating in the delivery of the Sky Glass streaming TV platform in 2021.