The UI Everyone Loves to Hate Just Won a Gold Medal
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Apple’s new Liquid Glass design may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s clearly turning heads in some corners of the design community — and in a good way. This week, Apple took home four prestigious awards from the Art Directors Club (ADC) for the new UI design, including a Gold Cube — the second-highest honor bestowed by the organization.
It’s worth noting that the ADC Awards specifically listed “iOS 26 Liquid Glass,” which means they were focusing on the iPhone design rather than the iPad or the Mac. That will likely make sense to many Mac users, who have found the translation of the Liquid Glass UI to macOS 26 Tahoe less than ideal.
Liquid Glass feels very much at home on iOS, and while it takes some getting used to, it’s not really a jarring experience. In fact, most of the people I’ve spoken to who were nervous about updating to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass found their opinions ranged from neutral to positive after a few weeks of actually using it. While that’s not universally true, it’s fair to say that for many, it’s the change away from a familiar design and adjustment to a new one that’s the real issue.
Either way, the ADC Awards prove that “actual designers like it,” as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman points out.
The Gold Cube for iOS 26 Liquid Glass was awarded in the “Interactive / UX / UI” category, while Apple won a Silver Cube for “Experiential Deign / Digital Experiences” and two Bronze Cubes for “Experiential Design / Consumer Experience” and “Innovation.” The four awards together placed Liquid Glass at #27 among the “Most Awarded Work Rankings.”
Liquid Glass wasn’t the only area in which Apple took home some ADC Awards. It also won two Gold Cubes for last fall’s Apple TV rebranding — one for the cinematography and one for the animated logo — as well as a Direction Gold Cube for its “Someday” ad and two more Gold Cubes for “I’m Not Remarkable” — one for Music and Use of Sound and another for Online Video.
The Gold Cube is one of the most prestigious awards the ADC hands out, but Apple has also previously taken home two Black Cubes — ADC’s Best of Show award that’s only given to one recipient each year. These were for the “Bounce” AirPods ad in 2020 and “Barbers” in 2018, an ad that showed off Portrait Mode on the iPhone 8.
Apple has also won numerous other Gold Cube awards over the years, but like its two Black Cube awards, these are much more frequently awarded for its ad campaigns. For example, it won five Gold Cubes in 2019, all of which were for its “Welcome Home” ad designed to show off the HomePod’s immersive listening experience.
While few outside of the art and design industry have heard of it, the ADC Awards were founded by the Art Directors Club in 1921, which means they’re now on their 105th year and are actually the longest continuously running industry award show in any discipline. While many of the awards focus on advertising, digital media, and photography, they actually run the entire gamut of art and design, from magazines and newspapers to logos, packaging and product design, photography, gaming, and experiential design, as this week’s Liquid Glass awards show.
