(Above: Yinka Ilori's "Transparent Happiness" installation for Amos Rex. Photo by Amos Rex.)

Every profession has its stars; the athlete who literally soars, the teacher who genuinely inspires, the bus driver who somehow manages to make the commute better. The simplest way to describe them is that each one gives more.

I would argue that the true stars among us (vs. the famous "stars" who dominate our feeds) understand that excellence is about striving and sacrifice, but it is also about sharing: What do you have to bring to the world today, and what are you willing to do to make it wonderful?

That's part of the reason that design, with its innate focus on humanity, is a perfect storm of creative star-making. Designers work within a profession that is consistently considering others, from individuals to the world at large, and they are constantly bringing things to life.

You'll see that instinct throughout this issue, including in our cover story on Yinka Ilori. Ilori has built a career, and a global reputation, on the belief that joy is not a luxury but a right. His brightly colored crossings, playgrounds, and public installations extend to entire neighborhoods rather than a single client. His reach keeps expanding, from product design to London's streets to museum walls to his own foundation, built to give communities permanent places to play. But the reach isn't the point. The mission is: to make people feel something good in spaces they didn't choose and don't own, simply because he believed they deserved to.

You'll also meet IIDA members who are stars closer to home: as advocates, as mentors, as champions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. And you'll spend time with sustainability superstar Eric Corey Freed, who has spent three decades proving that green building isn't a compromise, it's just better design.

What struck me most in this issue is how rarely these stars think of themselves that way. Ask a great designer what makes their work matter, and you'll get an answer about the people who use the space, not the person who designed it. That's professional clarity: an understanding that design is in service to humanity, and that the work only succeeds when it becomes a part of someone else's better day.

That premise is foundational to design, and I’m constantly reminded of it as I encounter the design superstars all around us. Read on, and I think you'll agree: the answers to that opening question are worth celebrating.