Red Dot design award

• 02/02/2014 - The trend barometer

  The trend barometer for design-strong brands: Final spurt in the Red Dot Award 2014

  Great authority in the search of the latest top performances in international product design: Being an independent competition, the Red Dot Award selects the best drafts from different industries for almost 60 years now. In 2014, a total of 23 product categories are available for registration – among others from the fields of living rooms and bedrooms, babies and children, watches and jewellery, office, vehicles and consumer electronics, to name but a few. All those who want to go hunting for the Red Dot quality seal, need to hurry up: Only until 5 February 2014, companies and designers can enter their current products and projects in the competition. The final spurt is in full swing!

  More and more manufacturers and designers from around the globe realise that the design is the essential criterion for the buying decision and additionally much more than only a beautiful appearance. In an ideal situation, they design products which convince today’s challenging and quality-conscious consumers with aspects such as functionality, ergonomics and durability. But for companies, it is not enough to be internally sure about the existing design quality. Competing with others and putting one’s own achievements to the test: Only in this way, one can receive a qualified evaluation of one’s own know-how and can develop further.

  Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, initiator and CEO of Red Dot, knows that the international top brands are fully aware of this: “The big brands identify the Red Dot Award more and more as an achievement barometer for their own power of innovation. With good cause, companies such as Lenovo, Walter Knoll, BMW or Apple participate in our competition annually and face the international comparison: They trust the well-founded decision of theRed Dot jury, which provides them ideally with a highly respected quality seal, but also with new inspiration for improving and developing further their products.” Moreover, the award serves the participants as a cross-sectoral comparison. There is a huge competition in many industries – like in the communications sector with its sheer unimaginable multiplicity of smartphones tablets or notebooks. In order to assert oneself in the long term, manufacturers and designers have to distinguish themselves in a positive way from the competition and generate unique selling points.

  Especially in highly competitive markets with a high saturation level, the certificate “Red Dot” is considered to be a quality argument and provides consumers with useful orientation. But also in other, less technical branches, such as the leisure and sports sector or the furniture industry, good design is increasingly important for companies in order to stand out from the mass.

  Who will impress with top performances and which industry will develop further? The design and its evaluation will decide! The laureates of the Red DotAward: Product Design 2014 will gain the respect of the international design scene as well as the highest degree of attention for outstanding design quality: On 7 July 2014, Red Dot will officially honour the best achievements during the traditional awards ceremony in Essen’s opera house. Afterwards, all products will be presented in the four-week winner exhibition “Design on Stage” in the Red Dot Design Museum Essen on the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein, before they become part of the permanent exhibition from August on.

  Red Dot Award: Product Design 2014:

  Registration only until and including 5 February 2014

   

  Jury session: February 2014

  Awards ceremony:         7 July 2014

  Special exhibition of the award-winning products: 8 July – 3 August 2014

   

  Further information and registration: www.red-dot.de/pd

  
  
  See the photogallery

  
• 19/12/2013 - Concept Design

  Higher, better, faster, stronger innovations Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014 set to begin with full speed ahead.
  
  

  Design is a test of endurance. Will designers be able to last till the end? The race for the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014 is set to begin on 1 January 2014 – in search of the best ideas, prototypes and concepts for the year, with all possible energy and enthusiasm.
  
  

  During the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2013, companies, design studios, universities and designers alike from 57 countries submitted 4,394 entries of their best innovative ideas - demonstrating the international significance of the competition.

  President of Red Dot Asia, Mr. Ken Koo: “The Red Dot Award: Design Concept is analogous to competitive sports; the excitement stems only from a better race, a better time, and uncovering a better athlete. A more exciting race and a more exciting award are both the result of greater challenges where more and more of the best in the field participate and compete to win.”
  
  

  The race for Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014 is set at full speed ahead with shorter timelines for submissions. The result will be an earlier announcement of the year’s best design concepts for their outstanding design quality and excellence on the 26 September 2014.

  The Early bird submission period will last shorter with only 29 days, from 1 January 2014 to 29 January 2014 while the final late submission deadline will end earlier this time, on 21 May 2014. Information on the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014 will be available at www.red-dot.sg from 2 December 2013 onwards.
  
  

  With the shorter race set to begin, designers, manufacturers, studios and universities from all over the world are once again invited to submit their design concepts and prototypes for the competition.

  Find out more about the shorter submission period for the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014. (http://www.red-dot.sg/en/participate/dates/).
  
  What are the presentation requirements for the Red Dot Award: Design Concept? Find out here (http://www.red-dot.sg/en/info/are-you-ready/).
  
  Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2014
  Early bird submission period: 1 January 2014 - 29 January 2014
  Standard submission period: 30 January 2014 - 2 April 2014
  Late submission period: 3 April 2014 - 21 May 2014
  Awarding ceremony: 26 September 2014
  Further information: www.red-dot.sg
  Special exhibition: From 27 September 2014 at the Red Dot Design Museum Singapore
  
  Online exhibition: From 27 September 2014 at www.red-dot.sg/online-exhibition

   

  
  
  See the photogallery

  
• 29/11/2013 - 50 free registrations

  Red Dot boosts the career: 50 free registrations to the design award
  
  Every year of the competition, Red Dot assigns 50 free registrations to young designers. The so-called “Red Dot Young Professionals Application Day“ is very popular with up-and-coming talents. It enables young professionals to compete with renowned designers from all over the world in the Red Dot Award: Product Design. The participation phase is already in full swing and on 11 December 2013, career-starters have 24 hours to apply for one out of 50 free registrations.
  
  The “Red Dot Young Professionals Application Day” was born out of the idea to support product designers, who have been offering their services only for a short period of time, with a participation at the worldwide renowned Red Dot Award: Product Design. It aims at providing creative young professionals a successful start into the world of design and to facilitate new talents’ access to the industry.
  First-time employees can compete with established and renowned product designers and international manufacturers, because: Young people often have notable innovative ideas and produce outstanding design achievements.
  
  The Red Dot Award strengthens the trust of potential clients and enables the laureates to already communicate their successes within their first working years.
  In 2013, hundreds of creative minds from 30 countries grabbed their chance and applied for the 50 free registrations within 24 hours. Nine of them convinced the jury with the design quality of their products. Bernhard Elsaesser, the second young professional in the history of the Red Dot to win the highest award in the competition, received the Red Dot: Best of the Best for the vase “The attitude of the definite - the square”.
  
  Besides the free participation, the up-and–coming designers are, in case of a distinction, supported with extensive measures: The use of the winner label for the awarded product, its presentation in the Red Dot Design Museum and in the online exhibition are the privileges. Furthermore, the laureates will be introduced in the Red Dot Design Yearbook, the standard work for contemporary design.

  This year, the Young Professionals Application Day will take place on 11 December 2013: Designers who have obtained their academic qualifications within the past five years, have 24 hours to apply via the Red Dot website for one of the free registrations. The participants of the promotion will be drawn randomly.
  
  At a glance:

  Young Professionals Application Day
  11 December 2013
  24 hours – starting at midnight in the respective time zone
  50 free registrations for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2014
  Eligible to participate: Graduates of design or architecture courses who have obtained their academic qualifications within the past five years
  Further information and registration at www.red-dot.org/pd
  
  

  Red Dot Award: Product Design 2014
  Dates (until and including):
  Early Bird 6 December 2013
  Regular 28 January 2014
  Latecomers 5 February 2014
  Jury session: February 2014
  Awards ceremony: 7 July 2014
  Special exhibition of the award-winning products: 8 July – 3 August 2014

  
  
  See the photogallery

  
• 26/10/2013 - Concept 2013

  The world’s best designs of the year were honoured at the Red Dot Design Museum Singapore earlier this evening with winning designers who flew from across the globe, some as far as Russia, Brazil, and Iran to receive the award during the celebrations.
  
  This year’s Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2013 received ideas and prototypes from all over the world, including product companies and design studios - a record 4,394 entries from 57 countries. Since its birth in 2005, the award has become an outlet for design teams and designers to showcase their latest research without customer constraint. With new categories increased to twenty four spanning across a broad spectrum from public space, lifestyle to industrial needs, concept categories are deliberately wide to ensure limitless imagination, redefining new innovations and explanations.
  
  “The sheer number of entries demonstrate the amount of attention brought towards design concepts, that societies are spending more attention on product innovations” commented Professor Lu Xiaobo, Red Dot Jury 2013, “with more design entries exploring new possibilities, pushing the frontiers of innovations, new concepts and ideas for the next generation”.
  
  202 concepts were awarded the “Red Dot” this year, with 49 being honoured “Red Dot: Best of the Best” for its exceptional design excellence. 39 concepts were also credited with an “Honourable Mention”. Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, initiator and CEO of Red Dot, and Mr. Ken Koo, President of Red Dot, Asia, gave out the awards.
  
  From the 49 “Red Dot: Best of the Best” laureates, the jury nominated 3 for the “Red Dot: Luminary” – the highest distinction given at the “Red Dot Award: Design Concept”, which honours the best concept of the competition. The three nominees were “KAMA” (A multifunctional excavator that can automatically change its tool head to undertake different types of work efficiently) by Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, China, “Lenify” (A collapsible emergency stretcher that was designed to eliminate the chance of secondary injuries from the lifting of patients up and onto the stretcher) by Taiwanese designer Lin Ta-Chin Danny, and “Nest - Rehoming Spent Laying Hens” (A contemporary kit-set hen house and supporting care system designed to encourage those living in populated areas within New Zealand to keep ex-commercial (or ‘spent’) layer hens as domestic pets.) by Massey University, New Zealand.
  
  This year’s Red Dot: Luminary took a serious look at how one’s habitat can change the way of living for us and future generations, addressing sustainability and life in its most pragmatic way. “Nest - Rehoming Spent Laying Hens” emerged as the top design, winning the votes from the jury. Raj Nandan, Red Dot Jury 2013, affirms “It’s a great example of redesigning a life cycle, which most people tend to think that once a life cycle is set, it can’t be changed or redesigned.”
  
  The “Red Dot: Luminary” was then presented to the School of Design, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, celebrating at its high point at the awarding ceremony. Prof. Dr. Zec and Mr. Koo then concluded the ceremony with the unveiling of this year’s yearbook, a condensation of the competition and “collection of imagination and innovation”. Special exhibition of the winning concepts were also unveiled both physically at the Red Dot Design Museum Singapore and online at the Red Dot Award: Design Concept website. The yearbook and exhibitions are traditions of the Red Dot Design Awards, providing designers with a reference to the best in design.
  
  For the ceremony, Pico Art International, the official event manager, transformed the design museum’s main gallery into a runway stage for presenting the winners to the audience.
  
  Lavish Dine, official caterer for the awarding ceremony, served up Wagyu beef, chicken and mushroom sliders immediately after the unveiling of the ceremony.
  
  Adding to the celebrations, Bombay Sapphire, the official spirit and cocktail for the awards, served the classic Bombay Sapphire & Tonic together with the Red Dot Cocktail which has
  been traditionally served during Red Dot celebrations. The Red Dot Cocktail - created and recommended by design expert Professor Dr. Peter Zec, were served to winners of the Red Dot Design Award, as the world’s top designers conversed and mingled with honorary guests from industry, politics and members of the press into the early hours.

  Red Dot Cocktail
  Take 4cl gin (Bombay Sapphire 47%), 4cl cranberry juice and 1cl Cointreau. Stir over lots of ice in a mixing glass and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Finally, add a cocktail cherry and the ‘in’ drink of the design scene is ready!

  
  Facts and figures of the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2013

  Entries: 4,394
  Nations: 57
  Red Dot Awards: 202
  Red Dot: Best of the Best Awards: 49
  Honourable Mention 39
  
  See the online exhibition, click here

   

   

  
  
  See the photogallery

  
• 15/10/2013 - Red Dot Gala and Designers’ Night in Berlin

  18 October 2013 is the date to remember this autumn, as that’s when the top names in the design industry will meet to celebrate the winners of this year’s Red Dot Award: Communication Design in the creative metropolis of Berlin. The winners will receive their sought-after trophies on stage in the Konzerthaus in Berlin at the official ceremony as part of the Red Dot Gala. This is where it will be announced which of the 72 Red Dot: Best of the Best winners will be awarded the top prize in the competition – the Red Dot: Grand Prix. The excitement will last until the very last moment, particularly for newcomers and young professionals who have entered the competition, when Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, the initiator and CEO of Red Dot, announces the winner of the Red Dot: Junior Prize and its prize money of EUR 10,000 in the presence of more than 1,200 international guests.
  
  The award ceremony also marks a special highlight for the Hamburg-based agency Mutabor. Not only is Mutabor celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, it will also be awarded the title of honour that is Red Dot: Agency of the Year on the evening in recognition of its outstanding and continuous creative achievements. The percussion duo Double Drums will provide the musical backdrop to the evening, with musicians Alexander Glöggler and Philipp Jungk creating a refined and humorous fusion of music, film and show to make for an unforgettable performance.
  
  Afterwards, the celebrations will continue at the Designers’ Night in the Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz, where the winners, jury members and design fans will party together into the early hours, marking the high point of this year’s competition. None other than Chrissi D! will get the crowd dancing on the evening. The star DJ, originally from the Ruhr region and now living in Berlin, also provided the sounds and the party atmosphere for the celebrations at the Red Dot Award: Product Design event in Essen. The Designers’ Night also marks the opening of the winners’ exhibition. The works of the winners of the Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2013 will be on display there until 20 October.
  
  Dates and facts:

  Red Dot Gala
  18 October 2013
  Entry: 7.30 pm
  Konzerthaus Berlin
  Gendarmenmarkt
  10117 Berlin/Germany

  Designers’ Night & vernissage for the winners’ exhibition “Design on Stage”
  18 October 2013, from 10 pm
  Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz
  Voltairestr. 5
  10179 Berlin/Germany
  Exhibition: 19 and 20 October 2013

  Special exhibition „Best Communication Design – Red Dot Winners Selection 2013“
  Museum for Communication Berlin
  Leipziger Straße 16
  10117 Berlin/Germany
  Exhibition runs from: 1 November 2013 to 5 January 2014

  
  
  See the photogallery

  
• 24/09/2013 - Success by design in China’s metropolis Xiamen

  “For the most talented people and creative ideas”:
  Red Dot presents business success by design in China’s metropolis Xiamen

  Design is not only the physical appearance of shapely products, but also the key factor for business success. In November 2013, Red Dot once more encourages manufacturing companies to focus on good design when creating their products in order to improve their competitiveness: As the internationally renowned indicator for outstanding design quality, Red Dot will soon label one of the biggest design and business festivities in the Far East.
  
  From 8 until 12 November 2013, for the second time in a row, the Red Dot organisation will hold the “Xiamen International Business of Design Week – Red Dot in China”. After last year`s successful debut, Xiamen will once again be home to the status quo of best Chinese and international design. The huge South-Chinese port city is a booming region that benefits from its position at the Taiwan Strait: From a geographic point of view, Taiwan as well as Japan and South Korea are even closer to Xiamen than Beijing. This is one reason why the metropolis has a big trade volume and traditionally wide-spread economic impact.
  
  In 2012, Red Dot`s exhibition of award-winning products at the Xiamen International Business of Design Week attracted thousands of qualified visitors. This year, Red Dot presents an inspiring Best Practice show with more than 120 awarded products by 92 companies. Furthermore, there will be assigned booths where Red Dot winners will introduce their design studios and achievements to the visitors.
  
  Professional insights into the world of design are given by internationally renowned experts at the Red Dot Design Forum: In their lectures, Prof. Dr. Peter Zec (initiator and CEO of Red Dot), Hideshi Hamaguchi (Director of Strategy at Ziba Design), Martin Darbyshire (Owner & Managing Director of tangerine) and Prof. Axel Thallemer (Chair of Industrial Design / Head of scionic research at Art University Linz), to name but a few, will point out the connection between economy and design. Last year, more than 500 company representatives, designers and students came to see the presentations. These figures provide impressive proof of the high level of interest in the topic of “Business Success by Design”, the overarching motto of the event.
  
  At the “2013 Xiamen International Business of Design Week”, Red Dot expands its contribution and includes a new component: An option for the visitors to the Red Dot Design Forum will be provided to attend seminars, where they can explore the findings from the presentations in more depth. This model forms the basis for the new Red Dot Academy with a programme that is geared to designers and design managers, but also to entrepreneurs and marketing experts who wish to get further training in the field of design. Red Dot CEO Prof. Dr. Peter Zec on the concept of the new academy: “In our globalised world, the competition is not primarilly for innovation and products, but for the most talented people and creative ideas. In view of Red Dot`s experience and its pursuit of quality, this model by the new academy provides an interesting possibility to become certified as a Red Dot Academy fellow.”
  
  Liu Keqing, Mayor of Xiamen Municipal People`s Government, welcomes the cooperation with Red Dot and looks forward to an inspiring event: “By freeing up the mind and bringing in global pioneering trends, this business design week will promote exchanges and cooperation between the creative and designing industries in Xiamen and its counterparts around the world, and maximise the role of creative design in building corporate innovative capacity and brand value of manufacturing companies.”
  
  In a press conference on 25 September 2013 at the Xiamen Culture and Art Center, Prof. Dr. Peter Zec and the representative official from Xiamen Municipal Government will present further details of the “Xiamen International Business of Design Week – Red Dot in China”.

  
  
  See the photogallery