Skift IDEA Awards

Creating the New Gold Standard in Travel

2014 - present

Innovation, Design, and the Future of Travel

Skift’s founder and CEO challenged me to create an industry awards program that would stand out in the market, cut across travel sectors, and celebrate the brands and designers making the end-to-end travel experience better for consumers. I answered with the Skift Design Awards.

The Skift Design Awards recognizes transformational design experiences across the traveler journey.

The awards honor leading work from the brands, agencies, and tech providers who create exceptional experiences for the modern traveler — from architecture to interiors, digital to events, tech to transportation, and everything in between. Positioned around holistic, human-centered design principles and a focus on the quality of travel experiences through the lens of the consumer, the Skift Design Awards has quickly become the industry’s most sought-after recognition.

To challenge the travel industry to think more broadly about the holistic nature of design, I wrote the Skift Design Manifesto (see case study) and assembled a diverse panel of all-star judges, each of whom celebrated as design leaders in their respective fields:

Yves Behar — Founder & CEO, Fuseproject
Liz Lambert — Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Bunkhouse
Jen Rubio — Chief Brand Officer, Away
Jan Chipchase — Founder, Studio D
Lindsey Maxwell — VP, Teague
Kristy Tillman — Head of Experience Design, Slack
Joe Geis — Global Head of Art & Graphics, WeWork
Colin Nagy — Head of Strategy, Fred & Farid

Scrapping the notion of a typical awards ceremony, we opted to present the night celebrating design through a panel discussion between renowned hotelier Ian Schrager (Studio 54, Palladium, Edition) and Debbie Millman, host of the Design Matters podcast. In between, we played video interstitials to reveal the winners and showcase their work from the stage.