We are pleased to announce that Weijen Chen, who completed the Ph.D. Program at KMD in March 2026, has received the iF DESIGN STUDENT AWARD 2026 for Cymatics Cup, a design research project conducted as part of her doctoral studies. In addition, her work was selected for the Haier Design Prize 2026 by iF Design, a special international award recognizing outstanding student design concepts, and honored at the award ceremony held in Frankfurt, Germany, as part of the World Design Capital 2026 celebrations.
▪️About the iF DESIGN STUDENT AWARD 2026
Established in 2003, the iF DESIGN STUDENT AWARD is one of the world’s leading design competitions for university students and young designers who graduated within the past two years. In the 2026 edition, 90 projects from 22 countries were selected from more than 7,000 submissions worldwide.
▪️About the Haier Design Prize by iF Design
The Haier Design Prize is a special award sponsored by Haier, recognizing outstanding projects among the winners of the iF DESIGN STUDENT AWARD. It celebrates innovative concepts that address major global challenges such as climate change, health, and social participation, while honoring the passion and creative potential of emerging designers. This year, four student projects from Germany, Japan, the United States, and South Korea were selected to receive this prestigious award.
▪️Award-winning Project: Cymatics Cup
“Cymatics Cup,” is a design concept that creates a novel drinking experience by generating standing wave patterns called “cymatics” on the surface of a beverage using low-frequency vibrations. Through cross-modal interactions between visual and tactile stimuli, it influences taste perception. By reimagining the relationship between perception and consumptions, the project aims to encourage healthier choices and contribute to a more sustainable society through the design of multisensory experiences.
– Award Page:
https://ifdesign.com/en/haier-design-prize-by-if-design
– “Cymatics Cup” Project introduction:
https://www.embodiedmedia.org/projects/cymatics-cup
– Academic paper for the project (ACM CHI 2024):
Weijen Chen, Yang Yang, Kao-Hua Liu, Yun Suen Pai, Junichi Yamaoka, and Kouta Minamizawa, “Cymatics Cup: Shape-Changing Drinks by Leveraging Cymatics.” In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), Article 861, pp.1–19, ACM, 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642920
