The 2026 Sergio Cereda Eyewear Design Award was presented at Mido 2026, highlighting emerging talent in eyewear design with a focus on sports-inspired concepts. The award ceremony took place on the Vision Stage in Milan and brought together international press, educators, students, and industry leaders.

Founded by Harvey Ross and supported by Mido, the Viva Ross Family Foundation, and the Cereda Family, the award honors the design philosophy of Sergio Cereda, a designer known for integrating creativity and manufacturing expertise. This year’s brief challenged students to create eyewear inspired by sport, movement, and performance, reflecting the energy surrounding the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games.

Award Winners

• Grand Prize ($10,000): Giada Tosana, Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Brescia (LABA), Italy

• Second Prize ($5,000): Elisa Albertini, LABA, Italy

• Third Prize ($2,500): Mahra Mustafa, Istituto Marangoni Milano, Italy

Two Special Recognition Awards of $1,000 each were presented by founder Harvey Ross for exceptional creativity and written submissions: Megan Broad Merkel (Savannah College of Art and Design, US) and Alessio Accardi (IED Torino, Italy).

Additional finalists included Alessandro Oberti, Gustav Craft, Camille Ferreira, Anping Chu, Connor Bybee, and Leon Voegtle, representing institutions in Italy, Germany, and the United States.

The entries were evaluated by an international panel of judges, including Harvey Ross, Viva International; Stefania Cereda Oppermann of EssilorLuxottica North America; Caterina Cereda, independent design and strategic consultant; Lorraine Berton, president of Mido and the Italian Optical Goods Manufacturers' Association; David Friedfeld, president of ClearVision Optical; Giovanni Vitaloni of Vanni Eyewear; and eyewear designer Bruno Palmegiani.

A central feature of the ceremony was the Sergio Cereda Eyewear Design Archive in Varese, Italy, which preserves Cereda’s original sketches, prototypes, and studio work. The archive serves as a resource for students, designers, and brands, offering insight into design practices that combine creativity with practical manufacturing considerations.

“This competition was created for a reason beyond awards. It exists to safeguard Sergio Cereda’s legacy—a way of designing where beauty, function, and production are inseparable,” said Ross. “Sergio was the designer’s designer. He could move effortlessly between extraordinary complexity and everyday accessibility, always honoring materials, process, and cost without ever diluting creativity. That mindset, that discipline, is what we are passing forward to the next generation.”