NeoCon + Design Days 2026: What Caught My Eye on the Floor

Every June, I come home from Chicago with sore feet, a camera roll full of chaos, and a much clearer sense of where this industry is headed. NeoCon and Design Days 2026 didn't disappoint — if anything, this year felt like the industry finally exhaling. After a few years of "figuring out hybrid," manufacturers showed up with confidence. They know what today's workplace needs to do, and they're designing for it with intention instead of guesswork.

Here's my honest recap: what stood out, what surprised me, and what I think it all means for the spaces we're helping our clients build right now.

Privacy Is Back, and It's Not Apologizing for Itself

If I had to pick one theme that showed up again and again, it's this: the private office is having a real moment. Manufacturers are going all in on it — thoughtful, well-detailed, no-boring-box private offices that feel like a reward rather than a leftover corner. Pair that with a serious uptick in pods and "space within space" solutions, and you can see the throughline clearly: acoustics, privacy, and private office are really the same shift wearing three different outfits. Companies who want to give people a place to focus and be unbothered, and they're willing to invest in it, we will have solutions to present.

Acoustics Take Center Stage

Speaking of focus… sound continues to be one of the most important design problems we solve for clients, and it showed. Buzzi and Turf both leaned hard into acoustic solutions, and honestly, Turf continues to have the best showroom experience in my opinion. It's not just about quieting a room anymore; acoustic products have become genuinely beautiful, with color, texture, and form doing double duty.

Design You Can Feel

One of my favorite discoveries this year was how much attention went into tactile and sensory experience. Spaces were designed to help people reset and recharge, not just sit and work. Case in point: a lounge chair and ottoman where the ottoman actually vibrates at a specific frequency and pattern to encourage circulation and rejuvenate the user. It sounds like a gimmick until you sit in it — it's not. We'll have this at Custer I the near future, so come feel it for yourself.

Color Stories: Matte, Tonal, and Bold

On the color and materials side, a few clear directions emerged:

• Matte and tonal palettes are continue to present a sophisticated vibe
• Oxblood showed up as a rich, grounding accent across multiple lines
• Color saturation was definitely present too -- with pops of blue and citron adding energy to otherwise neutral palettes
• A fun undercurrent of funky mid-mod motifs — bold pattern and retro shapes reimagined for today

It's a nice tension: quiet, tonal sophistication on one end, and confident, saturated personality on the other.

Culture and Experience as a Brand Strategy

A theme I didn't expect but loved: music. At least two showrooms went all in on it — hip-hop especially — with nods to vinyl records and music culture woven throughout. It's a great reminder that showrooms (and honestly, workplaces) are storytelling tools. When you build in moments of play and tactile engagement, people remember the experience, not just the product.

Manufacturer Highlights

Steelcase brought a lot to unpack this year — a genuine lean into sustainability with their WELL directory and more outward-facing data, plus new product launches in Viccarbe, Ocular Shift, and Aisla (very classy). I also picked up on some smaller, smart details: locks on bar pulls and ¼" frameless glass. Small touches, but the kind that show up in the details our clients actually notice day to day. There was also some sexy stitching on the Tête-à-Tête, a great bathroom wallcovering, a new Moooi seating launch, and a surprisingly comfortable sit in the newly launched Viccarbe lounge collection.

Hon simply brought a ton of product — more options than I expected, and genuinely something for everyone. Their education line (Hon Ed) deserves a special call-out too; it's clear they've thought carefully about that market.

Halcon continues to set the bar for attention to detail. Every year, they remind me why craftsmanship still matters in contract furniture.

Pleasant Surprises

A few things genuinely surprised me this year. A KI chair took gold — and I overheard competing manufacturers grumbling about it jealously, which tells you everything. I was also caught off guard that it was Watson who nailed a genuinely difficult category: a well-designed tech station. That's a hard thing to do well, and they did it.

On the tech side more broadly, I expected to see a lot more AI on the floor. I didn't… but I wasn't surprised that Crestron was the one doing it, and doing it well.

What This Means for the Workplace Today

Pulling back from the individual products, the throughline across this year's show is pretty clear: workplaces are being asked to do more emotional labor than ever. They need to support focus and privacy, but also connection and culture. They need to sound good, feel good, and photograph well. And increasingly, they need to just feel human — tactile, sensory, a little playful.

That's the environment we're designing for our clients right now, and it's exactly why we go to shows like this — to bring back not just product knowledge, but a real read on where the industry, and the people using these spaces, are headed.

See you on the floor next year.