2026 Exhibit of the Year

The top honor in The Experiential Design Authority's annual ExSys Awards is the Exhibit of the Year award, which is given to the entry that receives the highest score, regardless of category. This year, that honor went to the Neurocrine Biosciences exhibit at ENDO 2025, designed and built by Pinnacle.

Here, Pinnacle's Chief Creative Officer, Jimmy Doucette, gives us insight into the award-winning project, the work that went into its creation, and what this honor means to him and his team.

TEDA: Crenessity was the first FDA-approved treatment for congenital adrenal hyperplasia in more than 70 years. How did that extraordinary medical story influence the initial creative direction for the Neurocrine Biosciences exhibit?

JD: Patients and their endocrinologists had been waiting a long time for another treatment option. Working with the Neurocrine brand team, we wanted to create an exhibit that felt worthy of that moment.

On one of our first calls, the team explained that the Crenessity logo, which looks like a conch shell, was designed to represent progress. That really stuck with us. Progress gave us an idea to build around, connecting the identity of the brand to the patient story and the environment itself.

And because this was a new treatment with a different mechanism of action, education had to live alongside awareness. The space needed to invite meaningful clinical conversations around efficacy and safety, with different ways for healthcare professionals to explore the data. That combination shaped the creative direction.

TEDA: The patient silhouettes and Patient Journey experience brought a very human dimension to what could easily have been a highly technical scientific story. How important was it to put the patient—not just the product or mechanism of action—at the center of the experience?

JD: HCPs come to these exhibits looking for clinical information. They need to understand the safety and efficacy, prescribing and dosing information, and the clinical benefit, and we wanted to make that information accessible and useful.

We also wanted them to think about the person sitting across from them when they’re managing this disease. That’s why we put patient silhouettes at the center of the space and surrounded them with those clinical stories and data. The patient presence had a purpose to connect what HCPs were learning to the people they care for every day. That connection needed to be both memorable and clinically relevant.

TEDA: There are a lot of individual elements in this exhibit, but the finished environment feels cohesive. What was the underlying design strategy that kept the architecture, technology, educational content and experiential elements working together as one story?

JD: “Progress” became the organizing principle for how HCPs moved through the exhibit. We wanted the conversations to become more clinically robust as someone moved from the aisle deeper into the space.

At the perimeter, we led with compelling data and patient stories that could catch someone’s attention. From there, HCPs could follow their curiosity into more detailed education and conversation. So, they ended up having their own journey of progression through the experience.

That helped us make decisions about everything from brand placement to how we arranged the touchpoints and which information belonged at each one. Every element had a role in that journey. The architecture, technology, and content worked together to invite people in and give them more to explore as they moved through.

TEDA: The sculptural canopy immediately became the defining feature of the exhibit. Where did that idea come from, and what did you want attendees to feel or understand when they saw it from across the show floor?

JD: We saw an opportunity at ENDO to give this community something visually exciting. The brand team had brought us this beautiful, colorful, vibrant identity, and we wanted to use it to its fullest.

The canopy grew directly out of the logo and its expression of progress. We didn’t want to take our foot off the gas with the scale, the color, or the lighting. Lighting was especially important because it brought the sculptural form to life and gave it presence from across the floor.

We wanted people to recognize that something significant was happening. Before anyone read a word, the canopy needed to catch their attention and make them want to come closer and find out more.

TEDA: Rather than relying primarily on traditional graphics and static messaging, the exhibit used synchronized tablets, illuminated patient silhouettes, Patient Journey Kiosks, and a custom Patient Journey Game. How did you determine which parts of the story should be experienced rather than simply explained?

JD: It’s not all gaming, sports, and consumer activations here at Pinnacle. We have a group of really talented people who have dedicated their entire careers to healthcare. That experience helps us understand what HCPs value and choose formats that make the content more useful to them.

The podcast studio we built into the exhibit is a great example. Peer conversations and the perspectives of key opinion leaders matter to doctors as they consider treatments and approaches to care. We wanted to make room for those conversations within the experience.

Doctors could join or listen on site, then return to the discussion afterward—even pull up the podcast on the plane home. That gave them another way to engage with the science and consider what they’d heard. We brought that same thinking to each touchpoint, choosing the format that best served the content and the person engaging with it.

 TEDA: One of the things that made this project particularly compelling to ExSys Awards judges was the fact that the exhibit achieved such a high level of visual and architectural impact while using rental components. How did the constraints of a rental system actually influence the creative process?

JD: Our design team treated the rental components as the bones of the experience. They gave us a strong, configurable structure that could support different footprints, travel around the country, and help manage the budget.

We developed this system in-house, so our designers understood its possibilities and could push what we built around it. The storytelling, conversations, and how the space made people feel were all part of that creative work.

Rental exhibits can have a distinctive identity and real architectural ambition. This project shows how much you can do when the team understands both the system and the experience they want to create. We’re really proud of the design team for bringing those two things together.

TEDA: What did winning the 2026 ExSys Award for Exhibit of the Year mean to Pinnacle?

We were incredibly proud. And having that recognition come from work for a healthcare brand made it especially gratifying.

JD: Our client showed real creative bravery. The brand team and their compliance partners worked through the possibilities together and found a way to deliver something beautiful and meaningful within a highly regulated space. That takes commitment from everyone involved.

For those of us who have spent years in healthcare, it’s also a challenge to keep pushing. We know the responsibilities that come with this work. This project raises our expectations for what we can create while honoring them, and that’s something we’ll carry into the next assignment.

For a full list of the 2026 ExSys Award winners, click here.