Apple brings Mac and iPad projects to Paris design exhibition

Apple has opened its second Designers of Tomorrow exhibition in Paris, presenting work by four emerging designers and showing how they used Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple software during the creative process. The showcase opened on 20 October at Hôtel de Maisons with Design Miami. ¹²

What Apple is showing

The exhibition explores the theme of presence. Apple says curator Rodman Primack selected work by Salem S. Charabi, Isabel Rower, Yoonjeong Lee and the design studio Parafernalia. The finished pieces are intended to make visitors consider how objects shape physical environments and everyday experiences. ¹

Charabi’s The Eminence of Light is a lantern made with date-palm fronds, paper and limestone. Apple says he used a MacBook Pro for sketching and 3D modelling. Rower’s Padded Chair 1860 draws on historic papier-mâché furniture, while an iPhone helped document the finished work. ¹²

Yoonjeong Lee created a table-and-lamp project with ideas developed on iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Parafernalia’s MonoAmbiente 1 opens into a table and stools, with iPhone, iPad Pro, Procreate, Messages and FaceTime helping its two studios collaborate between Monterrey and Mexico City. ¹

A technology story told through objects

This is not a product launch, and Apple is not announcing new Mac or iPad hardware. Instead, the showcase positions the devices as part of a creative workflow: tools for sketching, modelling, documenting, sharing and revising ideas before they become furniture or lighting.

That distinction gives the exhibition a more useful technology angle than a standard product demonstration. A sketch can become a model, a photograph can record progress and a video call can keep a collaboration moving when designers work in different cities. The physical exhibition also lets visitors see materials and construction details that disappear on a screen. ¹

Why it matters

Apple frequently talks about its products as creative tools, but these projects make the claim concrete. Each designer has a different relationship with technology, from 3D modelling on MacBook Pro to early ideas on iPad and Apple Pencil and remote collaboration through communication software. The hardware is familiar; the finished work shows how it fits into specialised, tactile workflows. ¹

Our opinion

The strongest part of the exhibition is that Apple’s technology is present without being the only subject. The furniture and lighting projects give the devices a job to do rather than asking audiences to admire a Mac or iPad in isolation. There is an obvious promotional edge, but the designers’ different approaches make the ecosystem pitch more credible.