The Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) announced the 2025 Global Design Awards in San Francisco over the weekend. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s newly renovated Visitor Center in Ithaca, New York, was one of 30 projects honored out of 284 entries, receiving the Merit Award and the Sustainability Impact Recognition Award. These prestigious awards honor installations that connect people to place through storytelling, meaning, and impact.

“For nearly four decades, the SEGD Global Design Awards have defined design excellence in how we connect people to place through storytelling, meaning, and impact,” said SEGD CEO Cybelle Jones. “Winning projects highlight the breadth of our community—from deeply researched approaches that prove design’s impact beyond beauty, to work that advances equity, sustainability, and a more connected world.”

At the heart of the Cornell Lab’s Visitor Center is the Adelson Family Bird Discovery Lab, a dynamic space where visitors can listen to birdsong, explore migration maps, and uncover fascinating insights from the Lab’s research. This imaginative blending of science and storytelling earned the Cornell Lab and C&G Partners, the designers of the project, a Merit Award honoring artful conception and creative solutions in experience design.

The Cornell Lab and C&G Partners also received a Sustainability Impact Recognition from SEGD for demonstrating leadership in sustainable design through material innovation, process integration, and environmental sensitivity and a Gold in exhibit and print from Graphis Awards. Graphis Awards celebrate the industry’s best talents worldwide in design, advertising, art/illustration, photography and more.

Read the full story on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.