Hasta La Ideas

The purpose of an award, just speaking in a literal sense, is to reward something based on a set of guidelines. Awards are symbols of achievement, but aren’t therein, symbols of complete success. Think about it for a second – Is a design considered great if it has an award to its name? Or is it considered great based on its ability to affect positive change in the life of its users? Awards and real-world impact can sometimes be mutually exclusive, but the Design Intelligence Awards are actively trying to bridge that divide. China’s premier awards program, the Design Intelligence Award (DIA) doesn’t just reward good design. It incubates it. An award may be a symbolic achievement, but with the DIA, the award is often directly tied to real-world impact, because designs that participate in the Design Intelligence Award, go from brief to prototype to product pitch all in the span of the award’s timeline. It’s a long, arduous, meticulous process that’s less of your standard awards program and more of a crash course in design refinement, development, presentation, and the business of design. At the end of the program, all participants come out with insights and skill-sets to take their product from sketch-book to the marketplace, while the winners of the award are additionally awarded a hefty cash prize of 1 million RMB (approx. $145,000 USD).

What sets the DIA Awards apart is its intricate and methodical judging process, conducted over a period of days by as many as 500 multidisciplinary design experts who review each design with personal attention. Feedback and criticism are constructive, and the DIA Award approach to judging projects is extremely holistic, taking into account everything from the quality of its concept, to its usefulness, feasibility, impact on a personal as well as global scale, its sustainability as a product and as a business, and its marketability. Its judging process is broken into three segments too. The judging procedure happens in three rounds, the first of which is held online as jury members spend an entire week analyzing projects with potential. The second round involves looking at the product up close, as jury members interact with the physical product, judging it on a tactile level by looking at its proportions, testing it out, and interacting with it as a consumer would. The third round begins once this evaluation is complete – giving designers the opportunity to introduce their product to the masses. Held on a stage in front of an audience of judges, business heads, media personnel, and consumers, the third round is similar to a TED Talk, allowing you to pitch your design directly to consumers and gauge their reception.

Currently in its 5th year, the DIA Awards are now accepting entries for their 2020 edition. Advocating the core value of “Intelligence of Humanity, Wisdom of Life, Fusion of Tech & Art, and Intelligent Industry”, the awards, which span 4 broad categories, involve closely inspecting and reviewing every aspect of every product, down from its brief, intent, to its visual expression (your presentation and rendering skills), to description, proof-of-concept, and finally to your ability to talk about your product. The emerging winners of the DIA Award receive a hefty cash prize that goes up to 1 million RMB (approx. $145,000 USD), and are armed with all the skills and assets needed to take their product to the next step. Winners of the award also get inducted into the “DIA Platform”, a platform that integrates hundreds of venture capitals, incubators, manufacturing enterprises, and governments. Excellent participants are also invited to industrial events including capital docking, product hatching, intellectual property auction, etc. The very ethos of the DIA Awards is to turn potent ideas into impactful, world-changing designs. More than just a trophy and logo, the DIA Awards bestow upon its winners and participants all the exposure, skills, and tools they need to help kickstart their product journey. Besides, that 1 Million RMB surely helps along the way!

Sending your project through the Design Intelligence Awards helps accelerate its growth and put the project as well as you on a trajectory to success. Scroll below to look at some of the winners of the DIA Awards from the year gone by. Chances are you’ve probably heard of or seen them somewhere or the other, just because they’re so brilliantly defined, designed, and executed!

Click Here to Submit Your Designs Now! Last Date for Submission: July 6th, 2020.

– Registration is Free
– Gold Award (2 Prizes – $145,000/Prize)
– Silver Award (8 Prizes – $29,000/Prize)
– Bronze Award (10 Prizes – $ 14,000/Prize)
– Honorable Mention (around 300 prizes)

Winning Designs from DIA 2019

Hero Arm by Open Bionics (GOLD Winner)

Designed as a low-cost, high-impact tool to help increase mobility and accessibility in handicapped children, the Hero Arm by Open Bionics is a 3D printed arm that offers market-leading functionality at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitor. Moreover, the arm can even be customized with patterns, textures, and color-combinations pulled from superheroes and famous comic-book or movie characters! The Hero Arm is the world’s first 3D-printed bionic hand and the first to be available for children as young as 8 years old.

Visual Assisting Glasses II by Hangzhou Design Innovation (GOLD Winner)

These sunglasses are more than just a symbol of visual impairment. They act as a set of eyes, allowing the visually impaired to ‘see’ what’s around them. A camera mounted on the side of the glasses helps record objects, environments, and people around the wearer, while a pair of bone-conducting earphones help the visually impaired wearer by translating the camera’s feed into audio. The bone-conducting earphones not only give the wearer audio feedback, they do so without sitting within the wearer’s ears… so the ears are still free to hear sounds from all around!

The glasses use lightweight plastic titanium fuselage which houses the internal chip that helps with image recognition. Paired with the use of a mobile app, the glasses greatly improve the quality of life of blind people, especially outdoors. The second-generation glasses even sport touch-sensitive panels to help access features like the video assistant, character recognition, and map-routes.

Pop-Up Booster by Studio Gooris Limited

The Pop-Up Booster is a portable, foldable booster seat that relies on origami folding patterns to become a strong, sturdy seat when opened, and fold down to a flat profile when you’re done using it. The super-strong origami structure is designed to withstand as many as 20,000 impacts of up to 75kg. It’s also designed to securely hold your baby using its 5-band harness, fits most chairs, and is perfect for on-the-go families and hospitality spaces.

Collaborative Food Robot by Gree Electric Appliances

In the professional kitchen, it’s all about being able to consistently replicate a set menu of dishes day in and day out. In short, this is exactly the kind of job meant for a robotic arm. The Collaborative Food Robot turns the kitchen into a factory-line, recreating dishes to sheer perfection. The robots rely on 2D and 3D inputs to help them recreate dishes, and the multiple-axis robotic arms move with the degrees of freedom of human hands, but with the intricacy and accuracy only robots can achieve. Bon appetit!

Disposable Tooth-clean Fingerstall by Sun Yu

Made from food-grade natural latex, the Disposable Tooth-clean Fingerstall is a simple finger-glove with a textured tip that serves as a single-use toothbrush. Perfect for hotels, restaurants, picnics, or even airplanes, the Fingerstall is a neat, effective alternative to plastic toothbrushes. It slips right onto your finger allowing you to scrub your teeth clean efficiently and dispose of it when you’re done. The natural latex construction helps it easily biodegrade too, so it doesn’t end up clogging the earth or polluting the oceans like the millions of plastic toothbrushes do each year.

Adidas Futurecraft 4D by Adidas

The very notion that beams of light can participate in the design process sounds pretty revolutionary, doesn’t it? The Adidas Futurecraft 4D midsoles come 3D printed using a process called Digital Light Synthesis where beams of light allow products to be cured within a resin bath. This results in being able to print impossible designs with zero wastage, and is exactly why the Futurecrat 4D looks and feels so incredibly stunning and comfortable!

WT2 Real-time Earphone Translator by Innozen Design

The very idea behind the WT2 earphones was to be a shared experience. It’s perhaps for that very reason that the earphones come with a split-case design that allows you to hand one half to someone else, enabling both of you to have one earphone each. Once you’re both wearing the earphones, the WT2 allows you to actively converse in your own individual languages while the hardware and AI in the TWS earbuds record, translate, and play-back speech in realtime! The WT2 translation headset is the world’s first translation device that truly realizes natural communication, thanks to its “1+2” translation system which supports a real-time two-way translation in 40 languages.

Ona Radio by Lexon

It’s a shame that the smartphones (the iPhone in particular) killed the radio. The radio’s perception has always been that of a retro product, and the Ona helps redefine that with a design that’s equal parts vintage and contemporary. The cool, quirky, vibrant radio comes with a funky-retro vibe and connects to smartphones to double up as a Bluetooth speaker when you’re not tuning in to a radio station. If you do feel like listening to the radio, may I interest you in that beautiful transparent dial on the top that lets you fine-tune your radio’s frequency to find your favorite channel? Pretty alluring, eh?

Portable Intelligent Electrocardiogram by IU+Design

Yes, your smartwatch has an ECG/EKG built into it, but for people who want something more reliable, accurate, and affordable, the Portable Intelligent Electrocardiogram offers the ability to collect ECG data anywhere. The tiny device is no larger than a thumb-drive, and comes with two contact-points that help you capture your heart’s health in a way that can then be used by medical professionals to aid their diagnosis. The product is powered by button cells and runs for an entire year before needing any replacement. Designed with portability in mind, the medical device slides right into your pocket, or can easily be slipped into a wallet too, giving you the ability to carry your health with you wherever you go.

Neolix Autonomous Driving Vehicle by Neolix Technologies

Built to function with level 4 autonomy, the Neolix Autonomous Vehicle is designed to meet the EU’s homologation of Light quadricycles (L6e) standard and is capable of operating for a full 24 hours on a full charge. The EV sports a skateboard chassis and a modular setup on the top that allows it to transform based on the use-case, giving it the ability to serve multiple purposes. With the ability to take on loads as much as 500kg, the Neolix can easily serve as a cargo-delivery pod, a vending/retail experience on wheels, or even a patrol vehicle!

– Registration is Free
– Gold Award (2 Prizes – $145,000/Prize)
– Silver Award (8 Prizes – $29,000/Prize)
– Bronze Award (10 Prizes – $ 14,000/Prize)
– Honorable Mention (around 300 prizes)

Click Here to Submit Your Designs Now! Last Date for Submission: July 6th, 2020.

In the third and final part of Virtual Design Festival’s collaboration with the London Festival of Architecture, social design and urbanism practice Migrant’s Bureau reveals its manifesto for a new generation.

Migrant’s Bureau‘s work facilitates design interventions, research, podcasts and community workshops for disenfranchised and migrant communities.

In its manifesto for London Festival of Architecture, Migrant’s Bureau describes how it sees the next generation as multifaceted, cross-collaborative, caring, political and inclusive.

“When we first emerged, we recognised the missing link within our respective design industries that only told a single narrative and presented this as a default for all communities to adhere to,” Migrant’s Bureau director Alisha Fisher said.

“With our knowledge, diversity and the digital community of the Migrant’s Bureau team, we are able to translate these narratives that communities can choose to relate [to], foster and create with.”

The studio’s past projects include design interventions, community workshops, and even supper clubs.

“After attending panel discussions and lectures, we decided we’d like a more intimate space to share knowledge and somewhere where you could do this over the process of sharing food,” team member Rufus Shakespeare explained.

“It became a space of mutual aid and skill-sharing between collectives and grassroots organisations.”

Migrant’s Bureau was nominated by architect, project manager and quality assurance champion Yẹmí Aládérun.

“Migrant’s Bureau research, curate and design urban interventions within cities, communities & trans-local environments,” Aládérun said.

“They seek to interpret the migratory experiences of everyday life, recognising the influence that culture, geography and social circumstances have on lived experiences of the city and its architecture.”

Manifestos: Architecture for a New Generation is an annual collaboration between London Festival of Architecture and the Design Museum. It aims to highlight work by an emerging generation of voices in architecture who are expanding the parameters of what architecture can be, who London is for and what its future holds.

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To mark the passing of Milton Glaser, we’ve rounded up 11 of the New Yorker’s most interesting graphic designs from the past six decades, including a previously unreleased symbol of togetherness that he was working on up until his death.

Born on 26 June 1929, Glaser died exactly 91 years later on his birthday in New York, where he had lived all his life. His best known I NY project expressed his pride for the city and soon became a universally recognised symbol.

Around the same time as this campaign, the artist designed a poster for American singer Bob Dylan and co-founded the lifestyle and culture New York magazine.

Glaser continued to create graphics up until the last days of his life, when he was still working on a project designed to create a collective spirit during the coronavirus outbreak.

Here are 11 graphic design projects by the late artist:

Together

Up until his death on 26 June 2020, Glaser was working on a graphic project that would represent the idea of collectivity during the forced isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the artist told the New York Times, he hoped that the project, titled Together, would be distributed to public schools across the city to spread the message that “we are not alone”.

“‘We’re all in this together’ has been reiterated a thousand times, but you can create the symbolic equivalent of that phrase by just using the word ‘together’, and then making those letters [look] as though they are all different, but all related,” he told the publication.

I NY Campaign

Created in 1977 as part of an advertising campaign commissioned by New York State, the iconic I NY logo was designed to increase tourism and raise the spirits of New Yorkers after the city’s fiscal crisis.

Glaser, who designed the logo pro bono, chose to use a lettering similar to the well-known American Typewriter font for its “informality and literary reference”, as well as the fact that it provided a visual contrast to the voluptuous heart.

The designer later revisited the emblem after the attacks of September 11, adapting it to say “I NY More Than Ever”.

Mad Men poster for AMC

The final season of American drama television series Mad Men was advertised with a series of Art Nouveau-style posters and animations designed by Glaser in 2014.

The design features the iconic silhouette of protagonist Don Draper, as seen in the show’s opening credits, set against a backdrop of an illustration of a woman’s head next to a glass being filled with a drink.

Bob Dylan poster for CBS Records

Glaser applied his signature psychedelic style to a poster he designed for Columbia Records in 1967 to illustrate Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album. The work led to a surge of fame as a graphic designer.

Taking design cues from a self-portrait by French-American artist Marcel Duchamp, the poster sees Dylan’s side profile illustrated as a black silhouette, providing a stark contrast to the rainbow-coloured, swirling lines designed to represent the singer’s curly locks.

New York magazine logo

In 1968 Glaser founded New York magazine with American editor Clay Felker as a competitor to The New Yorker. Here he served as president and design director until 1977.

In addition to creating the curly logo for the life, culture, politics and style magazine, Glaser also designed a poster to promote the publication titled New York Is About New York, depicting the city’s Empire State Building at four different times.

Trump Vodka bottle

Glaser was also responsible for designing a gilded vodka bottle for US president Donald Trump, shortly before the former entrepreneur licensed his name to an anonymous Dutch-distilled vodka in 2006.

The bottle, which boasts a cubic design reminiscent of a skyscraper, features two sides coated in gold with the letter T cut out to show just the transparent glass, and two sides of the design in reverse.

When speaking to Fast Company about the design in 2016, however, Glaser told the publication that the bottle appealed “to the lowest level of human activity”.

“What you’re selling is envy and status,” he said, adding that he “wouldn’t, under no circumstances, do a job for Trump today,” as he saw him as “an extremely dangerous figure in American life.”

Get Out The Vote graphic for US election

Glaser was among a host of designers who created graphics to encourage Americans to travel to polling stations and vote in the 2016 presidential elections.

The colour-block poster, designed as part of the design organisation AIGA’s Get Out The Vote campaign, has the words “To Vote is to Exist” written across the front of a ballot box, as a voting slip being dropped inside.

Campari poster

In 1992, Glaser designed a vibrant poster for Italian alcohol brand Campari to promote its famous aperitif, best known for its use in Negroni cocktails.

The poster depicts a trapezoidal view of a table covered with a green, pink, purple and yellow-checkered cloth, on top of which is a bottle of the liqueur and a glass of its dark red liquid spilling over.

World Health Organisation

Glaser designed a poster for the World Health Organisation (WHO), titled AIDS: A Worldwide Effort Will Stop It.

The poster, released in 1987, featured a simple, red love heart symbol that had been split in half and separated, joined together in its centre by an emblem of a blue skull.

XIV Olympic Winter Games

To promote the 1984 XIV Olympic Winter Games held in Sarajevo, Glaser turned the Olympic symbol into a ring-toss game – with the imaginary player throwing the rings onto a Corinthian-style column.

The traditional Olympic colours of red, green, blue, yellow have been used to create a border around the outside of the poster.

It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying campaign

In 2014 Glaser launched a campaign to raise awareness of climate change. Called It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying, the initiative aimed to create a greater sense of urgency around climate change.

The campaign’s visual identity features a green disc obscured by black smoke to symbolise “the disappearance of light” from the planet.

Images courtesy of Milton Glaser Inc.

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Inspired by the 1970’s children’s toy Playplax, Australian designer and architect Zahava Elenberg designed Clikclax so that social distancing at work can be less dreadful, more playful! Elenberg is an award-winning architect with her own furniture and fit-out company Move-in which puts this project directly in the area of her expertise. Clikclax is a modular solution to help maintain social distancing policies in workplaces while being cost-effective.

Born out of necessity and changing times; Clikclax was initially created to aid returning to offices post the pandemic. While working on the prototype for her own office, Elenberg realized that the system’s broad functionality and adaptability could be beneficial in multiple settings. It comes as a fully customizable social distancing kit that can be installed on desks, countertops, and workspaces of different sizes with ease. It has been made light enough to be transportable and each kit consists of a series of 10 interlocking Perspex sheets of varying shapes and sizes, plus six bases that can all be combined. While the focus is its flexibility, durability, and design — Clikclax is fun and can be molded to any company’s or individual’s personality and preferences.

Made in Australia from Perspex – a solid material just like plexiglass, it comes in bright colors inspired by the Australian bush. It reimagines the unimaginative sneeze-guards to be more colorful as if they were toys as they become a part of our daily lives. “Not only has Clikclax been designed to enhance the look of a space, but it’s also super fun to put together and infinitely customizable, with a life of its own — much like the game that inspired it.” She adds: “Clikclax isn’t just for offices, it’s for any communal space; anywhere people want to come together but need to keep safely apart. It’s fun and functional and flexible.” Elenberg envisions people “clikclaxing” all over the world  — from offices and co-working spaces to schools and student accommodation, hotels, galleries, and libraries, at communal tables in cafes and restaurants, and on floors, for kids to play together, apart. If there was an ‘Anti-Social Social Distancing Club’, we would vote Elenberg to be its president!

Designers: Zahava Elenberg

Crafted from baltic birch and aircraft-grade aluminum, Intension Design’s Tripod Table can be adjusted to make your mobile workplace more comfortable. Whether you require it at its tallest (4.8 feet) or you only need a bit of elevation (1.8 feet), the birch plate—affixed to a quick-release tripod—keeps your laptop in place. Its ability to break down makes traveling with it easy too.