BIG SEE Product Design Nominators are designers, professors, researchers, editors and curators from Southeast Europe – a region we understand as one of the world’s creative edges.

Edges are places where conditions are tougher, resources scarcer, and expectations higher – where ingenuity is not optional but necessary. Edges exist around the world; Southeast Europe is simply the first one we have chosen to cultivate.

Coming from influential design studios, universities, innovation labs and cultural environments, our nominators understand what it means to create with limitations, real users, material constraints and unpredictable markets. They recognise the qualities that shape meaningful design today: clarity, functionality, responsibility, material intelligence and the ability to turn constraints into smart, elegant solutions.

Each nominator selects one outstanding young designer under 30 from their country – someone who demonstrates early talent, curiosity, courage and the instinct to design “from the edge”: hands-on, resourceful, and deeply attuned to how objects live in the world. Many of these young designers work outside the traditional centres of power, which makes this recognition even more transformative.

Their insight ensures that emerging talents – who might otherwise remain unseen – receive visibility at the moment when support, encouragement and validation matter most. The BIG SEE Perspectives Award becomes the first platform to amplify their voice and help them step confidently into the global design landscape. Together, this nominator network strengthens the cultural and professional foundations of product design in Southeast Europe – and prepares the ground for supporting young designers from creative edges across the world in the years ahead.