Golden Pin Design Award 2026 Reveals 474 Design Mark Winners

The 2026 Golden Pin Design Award announced its Design Mark winners on August 22, following the completion of the Secondary and Final Selection rounds in late August in Taipei. The Golden Pin Design Award itself is dedicated to discovering and honoring outstanding design works. For this year's Secondary Selection, a jury was specially formed with experts from diverse fields–including product, visual communication, architecture, curation, media, and market trends–to rigorously select exceptional designs from the entries that demonstrate contemporary vision and tangible impact.

A total of 474 design works across four categories stood out in the Secondary Selection to earn the prestigious Golden Pin Design Award Mark. Spanning 17 regions worldwide–including Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Germany, Poland, Italy, Turkey, and the United States–the winning works showcase the vibrant creative energy and a rich diversity of design solutions.

All Design Mark winners have qualified for the Final Selection to compete for the award’s highest honor: the “Best Design of the Year.” The shortlist will be announced shortly, with the winners to be officially revealed at the grand award ceremony in Taipei on Thursday, November 26.

Highlights of the 2026 Design Mark Winners

Cigarette Girl

The project by Evan Wijaya focuses on the creation of period-accurate graphic props and packaging design for the Netflix series Cigarette Girl. The design focus centers on absolute era-authenticity spanning the 1960s, 80s, and 2000s of Indonesian history. By meticulously reconstructing era-specific Indonesian typography, paper textures, and traditional printing imperfections, the props serve as tangible narrative anchors, elevating localized material culture into a universally resonant cinematic experience.

VENVE. Unique forms to arrange your space.

Designed for indoor and outdoor environments by Tomasz Augustyniak Studio, the VENVE furniture collection utilizes rotational moulding to create monolithic, highly durable forms with minimal waste. Crafted from fully recyclable polyethylene, the weather-resistant pieces feature varied seating heights and ergonomic backrests tailored to users of different ages and abilities, offering an inclusive and versatile seating solution for residential, hospitality, and public spaces.

Taiwan Tourism Rebranding

Centering on the conceptWAVES OF WONDER, the brand identity redesign by Bito for Taiwan's global tourism promotion translates the island's undulating mountains, coastlines, and road networks into a continuous visual language. Supported by a dynamic motion identity system, custom typography, and a seasonally inspired secondary palette, the flexible system ensures consistent cross-platform communication across digital and physical media.

BAS.MY

Designed by STUDIO KEKFENG for Malaysia’s national public bus service, BAS.MY is a brand identity and visual system built around a modular dot motif representing destinations. The system incorporates a custom typeface alongside a vibrant fluorescent pink chosen for high visibility within dense tropical environments. By prioritizing physical bus maps as primary navigational interfaces, the scalable identity improves route clarity and legibility, delivering an inclusive and unified transit experience.

SAZAE

To revitalize the long-established Hokkaido food brand SAZAE, this rebranding initiative by EIGHT BRANDING DESIGN Co., Ltd. refocused the business on its founding products—Ohagi (rice cake) and Omusubi (rice ball). The design team created a unified visual identity led by a new logo that integrates the forms of these two offerings. The refreshed aesthetic extends seamlessly across all touchpoints, including packaging, store interiors, and digital platforms, transforming a traditional local maker into a cohesive and sustainable modern brand.

The full list of 2026 Design Mark winners has been officially announced and can be viewed on the official website: https://goldenpin.org.tw/goldenpin/en.

Industry Leaders & Corporate Highlights

The 2026 Design Mark cohort also features standout works from major global brands and industry leaders. In Communication Design, international winners such as Japan’s stationery giant KOKUYO (with its WORKSIGHT participatory media platform) and Korea’s beauty group Amorepacific (with its Longtake Eau de Parfum packaging) were recognized alongside prominent Asian brands. Notable winners include LINE Taiwan’s LINE Seed TW typeface, Taipei Fubon Bank’s Fubon+ App, Cathay Life Insurance’s sustainable tea gift packaging, and the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) x Moonshine Animation’s Formosat-8 Satellite promotional film, underscoring design’s powerful role in brand identity, digital UX, and visual narrative.

In Product Design, Tatung’s 11-cup multi-functional stainless-steel rice cooker co-branded for semiconductor giant TSMC, Litemax Electronics’ dual-layer 13.3-inch e-paper display solution for bus stop signs, and IBASE Technology’s rugged in-vehicle edge AI computer highlight the versatility of contemporary industrial design–spanning consumer appliances, smart city infrastructure, and advanced hardware computing.

Best Design of the Year Shortlist Coming Soon

The Golden Pin Design Award evaluation is conducted in three stages: Preliminary Selection, Secondary Selection, and Final Selection. Entries passing the Secondary Selection are awarded the "Golden Pin Design Award Mark" and advance to the Final Selection to compete for the highest honor, the "Best Design of the Year."  This year's Final Selection was completed on August 26, and the highly anticipated finalists for the "Best Design of the Year" will be released in the near future.