I love the experience, the best programme to do in Cannes Lions
unknw at cannes lions 2026.
One week on the Croisette: award shows, house sessions, interviews with the people behind the year's best work — and our own race. Together with friends of the studio, UNKNW brought the Design Go Kart Grand Prix to Cannes: winners, judges, speakers and creators from the festival, on track, helmets on. Here's how it went.
01 — the week in framesscroll →
02 — part one
everyone talked ai. the best work was still made by humans.
The programme was wall-to-wall AI — and yet the work taking Lions home was made by people, not prompts. That tension was the most interesting conversation at the festival, and we went looking for it everywhere: in the Palais, at the activations, and in the rooms where the year's winners actually hang out.
With a mic in hand, we interviewed the people behind the year's work — including design legend David Carson, whose advice we'll keep verbatim: don't be afraid of old dogs, apply for awards, come here, and have fun.
- David Carson
- Iconic graphic designer
- Matthew Carey & Khyati Trehan
- Google Creative Lab — Gold Lion winners for Genie
- Jordan Stent & Kātene Durie-Doherty
- Motion Sickness
- Max Ottignon
- Co-founder, Ragged Edge
- Aksinia James
- Co-founder, NEU
03 — part two
everyone did dinners and yachts. we rented a race track.
Cannes runs on villas, rosé and seated dinners. We wanted people to actually meet each other — so we put festival winners, judges, speakers and creators into karts and let the lap times do the networking. When we told F1's commercial and marketing chief Jefferson Slack about it, he called it the best idea he'd heard all week.
You simply don't form connections like this at any other activity — there's something about racing wheel-to-wheel that gets people talking in a way no seated dinner ever will. Congratulations to our winners Alex Hay, Josh Exell and Tommy Johnson III, and respect to the full grid who took them on.
- On the podium
- Alex Hay · Josh Exell (award-winning film director, Cannes Lion winner) · Thomas L. "Tommy" Johnson III
- On the grid
- Diego Limberti (CDO, Droga5 SP) · Anam Ahmad (Forbes 30 Under 30, founder of The Hanging House) · Abdul Aleem · Polina Tishchenko · Anna Barchevskaia · Aksinia James · Arthur Melo
04 — post-race verdicts
That was so awesome! Fast, bummed, sweaty.
Such a great way to end the week
05 — full gallery
