IDSA, Dow Corning, Lextant and Microsoft Applaud 2011 IDEA Winners

The Industrial Designers Society of America Reveals Hottest Designs IDSA, Dow Corning, Lextant and Microsoft Applaud 2011 IDEA Winners

DULLES, Va., June 30, 2011 – The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the winners of the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA®) program—a celebration of design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts. This year the competition received a record amount of entries breaking the 2,000 mark since it began 31 years ago. Out of 524 finalists, 27 were honored with the Gold Award, while 68 received the Silver Award and 96 won the Bronze Award. Additionally, the program received a record amount of student entries. IDSA will announce the Best in Show, Curator’s Choice, People’s Choice and the Responsibility Awards at the IDEA ceremony on Sept. 17 at its 2011 International Conference in New Orleans.

The top corporate winners were Samsung of South Korea and Microsoft claiming seven awards and Belkin and GE Healthcare claiming three.

Among design firms: IDEO received 11 awards, fuseproject captured nine awards, Continuum and One & Co captured seven, Teague and frog received five, Ziba secured four, RKS captured three, and Smart Design, NewDealDesign and Stuart Karten Design received two awards. The Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, Calif., topped this year’s list of college wins with six awards.

“The IDEA program is considered by many as the ‘Oscars’ of design competitions because the judging process is rigorous and judged by the experts in their field,” said IDSA’s CEO Clive Roux. “This year our Best in Show award reveals another powerful story about the growing link between design and responsibility.”

“The rigor of selecting the best of over 2,000 entries culminated in three days of intense dialogue and debate that was stimulating and rewarding for the 20 expert jurors—we are proud of the work we have chosen to represent the best from our profession,” said IDEA’s Jury Chair Davin Stowell, founder and CEO of Smart Design.

The 2011 IDEA jury, made up of 20 international design experts coming from design consultancies, corporations and universities, spent weeks previewing entries online and two-and-a-half days of face-to- face evaluation and debate at The Henry Ford. Judging criteria focused on eight areas of industrial design excellence: innovation; benefit to the user; benefit to society; benefit to the client; visual appeal and appropriate aesthetics; usability, emotional factors and unmet needs for the design research category; and internal factors, methods, strategic value and implementation for the design strategy category.

The awards were chosen from the following industry and design categories: commercial and industrial products, communication tools, computer equipment, design strategy, entertainment, environments, home living, interactive product experiences, leisure and recreation, medical and scientific products, office and productivity, packaging and graphics, personal accessories, research, service design, student designs and transportation. Entries came from 39 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States.

This is the fourth year for IDEA/Brasil (www.ideabrasil.com.br), organized by Objeto Brasil and endorsed by IDSA to spur interest in design from Brazilian corporations as well as to heighten global awareness of Brazil’s rich design heritage. IDEA honored 10 winners this year.

The sponsors for this year’s awards were Dow Corning, Lextant and Microsoft. This is the second year that The Henry Ford will house the IDEA winners in its permanent collection to enrich the contents as it continues to tell the story of American innovation.

Media sponsors and partners include Core 77, Curve magazine, facesofdesign.com, Fast Company, FUSE conference and Yanko Design.

For detailed descriptions, photos and contact information on this year’s IDEA winners, visit http://www.idsa.org/idea-2011-gallery.

About IDEA Started in 1980 by IDSA, the International Design Excellence Awards program (IDEA®) fosters business and public understanding about the impact of design excellence on the quality of life and the economy. The IDEA program is considered one of the most preeminent design competitions in the nation with its scope and influence reaching far beyond U.S. boundaries.

About IDSA Founded in 1965, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is one of the world’s oldest, largest, member-driven societies for product design, industrial design, interaction design, human factors, ergonomics, design research, design management, universal design and related design fields. IDSA produces the renowned International Design Excellence Award® (IDEA) competition annually; hosts the International Design Conference and five regional conferences each year; and publishes Innovation, a quarterly journal on design, and designBytes, a weekly e-newsletter highlighting the latest headlines in the design world. IDSA's charitable arm, the Design Foundation, supports the dissemination of undergraduate scholarships annually to further industrial design education. The organization has more than 3,000 members in 27 chapters in the U.S. and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.idsa.org.

Media Contact: Roxann Henze, Director of Communications Industrial Designers Society of America 703.707.6000, ext. 102; [email protected]