The 2025 DesignTO Awards recognize design excellence at the DesignTO Festival, Canada’s leading and largest annual design festival that celebrates design as a multidisciplinary form of creative thinking and making. The DesignTO Awards celebrates the talent, expression, and diversity of designers from Toronto and abroad.
Featuring the work of hundreds of designers each year, the Festival showcases furniture, lighting, products, graphic and experiential design, interiors and architecture, accessories, ceramics, and more.
The Jury
Cole Swanson
Cole Swanson (he/him) is an artist and educator based in Toronto/Tkaronto. Swanson’s work opens to multiple ways of knowing; he creates alongside designers, craftspeople, conservationists, scientists, community partners, and non-humans to inform the creative process. He has participated in exhibitions, guest lectures, and residencies across Canada and abroad. In 2023, he was awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the nation’s top doctoral prize.
Swanson is currently engaged in multispecies and artistic research into Toronto’s massive and maligned double-crested cormorant colony. He is a professor in the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts at Humber College.
coleswanson.org | @coleswansonart
Annie Chou
Annie Chou (Co-Founder, Agency of Research and Creation | Arc & Co.) is a vanguard in brand experience planning and strategy, leveraging 20-years of immersion in designing for the consumer packaged goods industry and the cultural institution realm. Starting out as a creative rebel with a passion for designing a better world, she has gradually shifted her focus to research. With interests spanning the arts, humanities, cognitive science, semiotics, and social studies, Annie is fascinated by human interaction with curated brand experiences and advocates for a design industry aligned with the contemporary zeitgeist. A fervent proponent of synergizing creative vision with astute business leadership, Annie orchestrates collaborations that transform the very essence of product ideation and industry paradigms.
Julian Gregory
Julian Gregory is a designer based in Toronto, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. He uses a material and process driven approach to play with the overlooked properties of the physical world. Through his work, he seeks to frame the poetic gestures and inspiration found in seemingly ordinary objects. Julian has experience from various design studios across North America, has shown work internationally, and has been featured in publications such as Sight Unseen, Intramuros, and Designlines.
Stephanie Mah
Stephanie is Creative Director at Giaimo, a Toronto-based architecture firm integrating design, conservation, and sustainability. Over the last 10 years in the city-building industry, Stephanie’s work has focused on community placemaking, circularity and building reuse, and heritage as climate action. As Past President of the non-profit charitable organization Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO)’s Toronto Branch she led the award-winning Oculus Revitalization project. She is a professional member of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP), board member of International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Canada, and past member of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada (SSAC) Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity, and Sustainability Committee.
Kurtis Chen
Kurtis Chen is a partner and Certified Passive House Designer (CPHD) at Make Good Projects, a Toronto-based architecture and communications practice. His experience spans the gamut from high performance detailing to documentary filmmaking, unified by an interest in shaping the built environment for the better. Previously, Chen co-founded Route Eleven, a two-time Juno award–winning film production company and Cannes Young Lion recipient.
Don’t forget to vote!
While the annual jury of designers and industry experts vote for the ‘Founders’, ‘Emerging Artist/Designer’ and ‘Best Product’ awards, as well as three ‘Best in Festival’ categories and three ‘Juror’s Choice’ each, the public votes for four ‘People’s Choice’ awards.
To vote for your Festival favourites, visit the DesignTO Awards People’s Choice voting page.
About DesignTO
DesignTO is a non-profit arts organization celebrating 15 years of designing a sustainable, just, and joyful future. From January 24-February 2, 2025, the DesignTO Festival features 100+ free events across Toronto, showcasing hundreds of artists and designers. Known as Canada’s largest annual design festival, DesignTO has welcomed over 1 million attendees, reached 2.6 billion people through media, supported 6,500+ creatives, and generated $120 million in tourism impact. “DesignTO isn’t just a festival; it’s an anti-loneliness machine,” co-founder Christina Zeidler remarked, underscoring the organization’s power to foster belonging and spark vital conversations about design’s role in shaping a better world.
