The Red Dot, the seal of quality of the Red Dot Design Award, gives consumers direction when deciding what products to buy, as it highlights their good design quality and thereby also their success in the Red Dot Design Award. Designers and companies from all over the world have until 9 February 2018 to enter their products in the competition. From furniture and seating or household appliances, sports equipment and jewellery to robot technology and drones, there are 48 categories in which this year’s participants can choose to enter their products.
Under the motto “In search of good design and innovation”, the 40-member jury will award products that are convincing in terms of their high design quality. Specialists like Datuk‘ Jimmy Choo, founder of the eponymous couture label, Alexander Neumeister, designer of the ICE, and Hideshi Hamaguchi, who participated in the development of the USB stick, will enrich this year’s jury with their expert knowledge (seen below, l-r). They will assess, discuss and test each individual product live and on site. Criteria such as the level of innovation, functionality, formal quality, ergonomics, durability and ecological compatibility provide a frame of reference when judging, which each juror then complements with his or her expertise and background.
The competition winners will be officially announced at the award ceremony on 9 July 2018. The ‘Best of the Best’ winners receive their trophies on stage in the Aalto Theater in Essen, Germany, in front of approximately 1,200 guests. These successes are celebrated in the midst of the “Design on stage” Winners’ Exhibition at the subsequent Designers’ Night in the Red Dot Design Museum.
In order to appraise the diversity in the field of design in a professional manner, the awards breaks down into the three disciplines of Red Dot Award: Product Design, Red Dot Award: Communication Design and Red Dot Award: Design Concept. The Red Dot Award is one of the world’s largest design competitions. In 1955, a jury convened for the first time to assess the best designs of the day. In the 1990s, Red Dot CEO Professor Dr Peter Zec developed the name and brand of the award. Ever since, the sought-after Red Dot award has been the revered international seal of outstanding design quality. More information is available at www.red-dot.de.
