Hasta La Ideas

The iF Design Award has been consistently hand-picking the best, most innovative designs since 1953, honoring top-class achievements in categories spanning Product Design, Communication Design, Packaging, Service Design, Architecture, Interior Architecture, and UI and UX for 67 years in a row. The entire iF Design Award program saw as many as 10,000 submissions this year, which were evaluated by 98 international design experts from 21 countries, on the iF Jury.

Just this year alone, 1,744 designs received the iF Design Award for their creative accomplishments across various categories, while an additional 75 designs went on to win the highly-coveted iF gold award for their outstanding work. The iF Design Award always culminates in a grand ceremony in Berlin, although owing to the pandemic and global travel restrictions, award-winning products and projects this year are being celebrated digitally with an international content campaign encapsulated by the slogan “The CreatiFe Power of Design” in cooperation with renowned design platforms and seven renowned design museums.

Over the course of the next few months, Yanko Design will be curating and featuring winning designs from this year’s program too – we’ve hand-picked seven award-winning designs from the Bicycling category below! All the iF Design Award winners can also be viewed on the newly-launched iF Design App that gives you access to a grand database of award-winning design projects and their creators, right at your fingertips!

To view all these designs and many more, visit the website of the iF DESIGN AWARD.

Click Here to download the brand new iF Design App – a new experience in discovering outstanding designs

Award-Winning Bicycles and Travel-gear from the iF Design Award 2021

Halfway Folding Bicycle by Giant Co. Ltd. (iF gold award Winner)

The iF gold award-winning Halfway bicycle solves every commuter’s biggest headache – carrying their cycle on public transit or into buildings. Its unique folding mechanism allows the entire bicycle to pack up into a hand-pulled strolley that you can easily wheel around with you. The bicycle even comes with its own front-basket for storing your bag while cycling, and caster-wheels on the basket allow the cycle to be rolled around when completely folded! “The term Halfway refers to the folding system of the bicycle – utilizing a single-sided fork and chain-stay which equates to a more compact enclosure size. The auto-lock system provides fewer steps for folding and introduces a new level of safety while riding”, mentions the Chinese design studio and creator behind the Halfway, Giant Co. Ltd.

Litelok Go Flexi-U by Prof. Neil Barron for LITELOK

Litelok Go Flexi-U is the world’s first insurance-rated, flexible U-lock for bikes. Unlike conventional U-locks that come with a rigid design, the Go Flexi-U sports a flexible design that can easily wrap around poles, fences, and other objects. It matches the strength and durability of traditional U-locks while being incredibly lightweight (641 grams). Moreover, it easily straps to your bike’s frame, making it rather easy to carry around with you as you ride!

Gmigo One by Baron Design Studio and Tianjin Jidian Road Technology Co. Ltd.

Designed to be a smart, modular scooter for urban commuting, the Gmigo One comes with a shape-shifting design that allows you to alternate between sitting and standing scooter designs just by plugging in different modules into the scooter’s unique frontal frame. The minimal design and Stormtrooper color-way forms a perfect foreground against the urban backdrop, and the small wheels are perfect for in-city commute. The scooter’s easily detachable hub makes the folded volume smaller and easy to store, and the magnesium alloy die-cast body helps dramatically reduce the scooter’s overall weight.

Canyon Fix 3-in-1 Minitool by Canyon Bicycles

Don’t let its unseemingly tiny design fool you, Canyon’s Fix 3-in-1 tool houses a veritable bicycle-fixing tool-shop in a compact yet extremely versatile form factor. Combining 3 tools into 1 small, light mini-tool, it features a ratchet with 4 double-sided bits, a Dynaplug® tool to fix punctures on tubeless tires, and a CO2 inflator to pump up flats. With a CNC-milled aluminum body, it weighs just 45g yet can deliver up to 30 Nm of torque, helping you pull apart your cycle and fix it together with no fuss. Plus, it’s about the size of your finger, so you can easily stash it anywhere while riding.

Canyon Speedmax by Artefakt Design for Canyon Bicycles

From the makers of the 3-in-1 minitool also comes the Speedmax, an incredibly capable bike designed to dominate triathlons. By providing more configuration options, optimized aerodynamics, even more innovative integration solutions, and storage spaces with a more streamlined design, the bike was built to give the triathlete every possible performance advantage. Canyon also worked hand-in-hand with Artefakt, a German-based design studio that played an instrumental role in developing the Speedmax series ever since its debut in 2010.

Thule RoundTrip Bike Duffel by Thule Group

Designed by the popular Swiss-based outdoor and transportation gear company, the Thule RoundTrip Bike Duffel is nothing short of a bike-gear-locker that you can carry with you. Designed on the format of popular camera-gear bags, the RoundTrip Bike Duffel comes purpose-built for dedicated cyclists, with a structured, organized interior that provides dedicated storage spaces for clothes, accessories, and EDC. Designed with individual cell pockets, tarpaulin-lined zippered pockets and a toolbox structure to easily see and access items, the Thule RoundTrip Bike Duffel is the perfect travel companion as you’re cycling, allowing you to easily access clothes, bike-repairing gear, or even your camera equipment when you’re outdoors!

FORE_Bicycle by GK Kyoto Inc. and GK Design Soken Hiroshima Inc.

Envisioned as a bicycle that’s designed for everyone, the FORE_Bicycle takes on the format of a scooter, with a minimal U-shaped frame that lets even women ride it while wearing skirts. The bike comes with a nude silver aesthetic that feels natural and allows it to easily blend into environments and boasts of a unique chainless format that makes it easier to maintain. The chainless design also eliminates the stress of getting grease on your clothes, or worse, getting your clothes caught in the chainlinks. By adopting this new foolproof format, the FORE_Bicycle improves the cycling experience, making it safer and much more hassle-free for everyone who rides it!

To view all these designs and many more, visit the website of the iF DESIGN AWARD.