The 2026 edition of Pentawards Festival X Paris Packaging Week has come to an end and what a jam-packed, inspiring, future defining celebration of design it was!

We hope that it helped to fuel you for the working year ahead, and if you missed some of it, we’ve put together some of our highlights from the Festival below.

Icons on stage

Everyone was talking about the icons that took to the Pentawards stage.

LEGO’s Lukas and Helle unpacked 90 years of the iconic box and how they use visual cues, smart construction, distinctive graphic design and a unified voice within their packaging design. Jo Smith, Design and Visual Identity Leader at DIAGEO did her first ever keynote about how as design leaders you can help to lead ideas across the gap between ambition and reality – with a little nod to star wars.

We sat down with Master of Scent Kilian Hennessy and Creative Director & CEO of Carré Basset, Franck Basset  to get to know the creative process behind the luxury French fragrance brand, Kilian Paris.

And of course perhaps the most iconic female designer of our time, Paula Scher opened day 2 alongside fellow Pentagram Partner, Piotr Woronkowicz, giving an deep dive into the defining projects they’ve worked. From both a graphic and industrial design point of view, they talked through the design process and cues behind projects such as Dr Jart, Portman Tea, Memphis Art Museum and Shakespeare in the Park.

People behind the ideas

As always, we’re not only interested in the design but the people behind the design. We heard from Davide Mosconi, Partner & Executive Creative Director at the Italian agency on everyone’s Pinterest board - AUGE Design. In the life ‘My Life in Design Podcast’ hosted by Claire Blyth, he took us on his creative journey from a young boy with a curiosity for design to taking risks to create stand-out, original packaging at AUGE Design.

With the design panels, we heard from founders and creative directors from Servaire & Co, Twelve, We Are Aktivists, Gentlebrand, ARD and Design Lab K Laser about balancing creativity and business, navigating difficult conversations and small ideas that made a big difference.

A celebration of creativity

Our gallery was bigger and better than ever before, with archival diamond winners alongside packs from the likes of Derek & Eric, FUJIFILM, PepsiCo, Makers & Allies and more, guests took a walk through a celebration of some of the best global packaging designs, the ultimate hit of inspiration.

It  didn’t stop there, artist and designer Tina Touli’s mesmerising live art performance used water, paint and oil. And she took us through the process of blending the physical and digital world with her unique format of art.

Fuelling the Future

As well as creativity and storytelling taking centre stage at the show, we also heard about how we can use AI and tech as tools within design.

Federico Casalegno, Executive Vice President of Design at Samsung Electronics talked about human centred AI – putting people first and designing for life, not just efficiency.

We also welcomed the Google Accessibility Discovery Centre team, Hans and Praneeth to the stage who talked about innovation through inclusive packaging, and how we should bridge the gap between ‘designing for’ to ‘designing with’.

A HUGE thank you to our exhibitors, speakers, headline sponsors Tilt, networking sponsors Tapi/Delage and Paris Packaging Week for making this all possible – we had a blast! See you next year?