Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Wire: design journalists are divided by the announcement that the Olympic Torch by British designers BarberOsgerby has won the overall prize at the Design of the Year awards, presented by the Design Museum in London.

Edwin Heathcote, design critic at The Financial Times is a fan of the torch, claiming: “The design impressively melds functional and symbolic roles.” Heathcote also worries that the credibility of the overall selections are debatable, adding, “There is, perhaps, a sense that these awards reward the obvious.”

The Telegraph has previously compared the torch to a “cheese grater or an ice cream cone” and a commentor on their announcement of the winner added: “Wouldn’t it be far more symbolic of the modern Olympic spirit if the Torch were made in the shape of a huge syringe?”

Angus Montgomery, editor of Design Week, feels there were more worthy candidates on the shortlist and suggests that the selectors have gone for the “most impactful, rather than necessarily the best design of the year.”

Fashion journalists were disappointed to see the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen miss out to an origami-inspired collection by Issey Miyake.

You can see our previous story about the torch here and our round up of all the category winners here.

Dezeen Wire: a 3% drop in output from the construction industry is being cited as a major contributing factor to the UK economy re-entering recession – BBC.

A fall in public sector investment contributed to the dramatic drop in revenue from the construction industry. Output from the production industries also decreased by 0.4%, while the service sector increased by just 0.1%, with the overall economy shrinking by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012.

Those involved in construction are calling on the government to ease spending cuts in order to stimulate growth within the industry. Judy Lowe, deputy chairman of industry body CITB-ConstructionSkills, said: “”The huge cuts to public spending – 25% in public sector housing and 24% in public non-housing and with a further 10% cuts to both anticipated for 2013 – have left a hole too big for other sectors to fill.”

On industry website Construction Enquirer, Noble Francis, Construction Products Association Economics Director warned: “With new orders for construction falling 14% in 2011, the industry is likely to endure further falls near-term.”

We regularly publish reports from the RIBA that track trends in workload and confidence within the architecture industry – see all our previous stories here.

Dezeen Wire: the London 2012 Olympic Torch by east London designers BarberOsgerby has been awarded as Design of the Year in a ceremony at the Design Museum in London tonight.

The category winners have also been announced, and include the London 2012 Velodrome by Hopkins (above, see our earlier story) Issey Miyake ‘s 132.5 collection (below, see our earlier story) and the 1.3 Chair made of balsa wood that Ki Hyun Kim showed at his graduation from the Royal College of Art last year (see our story here).

The redesign of the Emergency Ambulance triumphed in the transport category, designed by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and the vehicle design department at the Royal College of Art, the digital category winner was Kinect by Microsoft and the graphics category winner was Nokia Pure, a font by London firm Dalton Maag that can adjust to any language.

All the nominated designs are on show at the museum until 4 July – see the full shortlist here and our story on the exhibition design here.

See our earlier stories on previous winners:

2008 – One Laptop per Child by Yves Béhar of Fuseproject
2009 – Barack Obama Poster by Shepard Fairey
2010 – Folding Plug by Min-Kyu Choi
2011 – Plumen Lightbulb 001 by Samuel Wilkinson

Here’s some more information from the museum:

London Olympic Torch wins Design of the Year 2012

Design Studio, Barber Osgerby wins international design award for the London 2012 Olympic Torch.

London, 24 April: British design studio Barber Osgerby have won the Design of the Year 2012 for their stunning design of the London 2012 Olympic Torch. The overall winner was chosen from 89 entries to claim the winning title. The award, designed by Swarovski was presented at last nights awards ceremony held at the Design Museum.

The London 2012 Olympic Torch is not only a beautiful symbol of the Olympic Games but it also meets a demanding design brief. The aluminium made torch will be carried over 8,000 miles and is perforated with 8,000 circular holes, each representing a bearer who will run with the torch. Aside from being decorative, the holes also act to reduce the weight of the torch and prevent heat from the flame being conducted to the bearer’s hand.

Deyan Sudjic Director of the Design Museum said of the winning entry ‘Nothing is harder to get right than designing for the Olympics. The lightness and simplicity of Barber Osgerby’s London 2012 Olympic Torch does just that. The torch not only captures the spirit of London as Olympic host city but also demonstrates how design can celebrate traditional ideas in a modern way’.

Sebastian Coe, Chair of LOCOG, added: ‘The Torch is one of the most recognisable symbols of the Olympic Games and we are thrilled that our design has won this prestigious title. I am delighted we have such a brilliantly designed, engineered and crafted Torch that will help to celebrate the amazing personal achievements of each of our 8,000 Torchbearers and give them their moment to shine. It is also fantastic news that the stunning architecture of the London 2012 Velodrome has won an award and welcome recognition of the landmark new buildings the Games are bringing to London.’

Seven Category awards were also presented at the ceremony:

The Architecture Award went to the London 2012 Velodrome.
The Fashion Award went to Issey Miyake 132.5 collection.
The Digital Awards went to Kinect by Microsoft.
The Transport Award went to the redesign of the Emergency Ambulance.
The Graphic Award went to Nokia Pure, a font design that can adjust to all languages.
The Furniture Category was won by recent RCA graduate Kihyun Kim for his balsa wood 1.3 Chair.

The London 2012 Olympic Torch along with the other shortlisted designs are currently on show at the Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum, London until July 4.

2012 Design Awards Jury:

Evgeny Lebedev
Henrietta Thompson
Hella Jongerious
Sir George Iacobescu

Overall winner – Design of the Year 2012

The London 2012 Olympic Torch, UK
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, commissioned by the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics Games

Category winners:

Architecture Award 2012
London 2012 Velodrome, London, UK
Hopkins Architects

Digital Award 2012
Microsoft Kinect and Kinect SDK
Microsoft Games Studios, Microsoft Research and Xbox, UK and USA

Fashion Award 2012
132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE
Miyake Design Studio, Tokyo, Japan

Furniture Award 2012
1.3 Chair, Balsa Furniture, London, UK
Kihyun Kim

Graphics Award 2012
Nokia Pure Font, London, UK
Dalton Maag

Product Award 2012
The London 2012 Olympic Torch, UK
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, commissioned by the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics Games

Transport Award 2012
Re-design for Emergency Ambulance, London, UK
Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and Vehicle Design Department,
Royal College of Art

The Design of the Year 2012 Awards were designed by Swarovski

Dezeen Wire: design critic Justin McGuirk writes about the focus on alternative means of production, open-source design and crowd-funding that permeated this year’s Milan furniture fair in his column for the Guardian newspaper.

McGuirk talked to Dezeen about these issues when he popped into Dezeen Studio powered by Jambox at MOST last week – watch the interview in our daily show from Milan here.

We also spoke to editor-in-chief of Domus magazine Joseph Grima about The Future in the Making show he curated that’s all about collaboration, open design, crowd-sourcing and hacking, and interviewed curator Beatrice Galilee at Hacked Lab where workshops, demonstrations and happenings took over the city’s most famous department store all week.

See all our coverage from Milan here.

Dezeen Wire: the winners of the fiftieth D&AD Awards have been announced. See press release below.

See all the winning projects on the D&AD website.

D&AD Awards 2012 Yellow Pencil winners announced

There were a total of 66 Yellow Pencils awarded to the best of the world’s design, advertising and communications work at the 2012 D&AD Awards, the organisation’s fiftieth anniversary.

Significant winners were JWT Shanghai, which scooped three Yellow Pencils for its “Samsonite Suitcase” work in Press and Outdoor and JWT Melbourne, which won two Yellows for its Melbourne Writers Festival “Wi-FiCTION” campaign.

Other campaigns to win more than one of the coveted awards included LOWE/SSP3 for the Colombian Ministry of Defence, Dentsu Tokyo for Honda Motor’s “internavi”, Ogilvy Johannesburg for Multichoice/M-Net’s “MK is” campaign and Be Bravo for its work with Leica.

British publisher, Laurence King and Marion Deuchars gained two Yellow Pencils in Book Design and Illustration for “Let’s Make Some Great Art”, as did W+K London for its Kaiser Chiefs “Bespoke Album Creation Experience”.

Tim Lindsay, CEO of D&AD said: “First I’d like to thank the almost 200 judges who took part judging thousands of pieces of work this year. They have once again helped to make this the awards ‘for creatives, judged by creatives’.

“Across the board, D&AD has once again reflected the changing shape of our industry. The craft skills of making great pieces of graphic design, illustration, direct and TV and Cinema are as strong as ever.

“However, we’ve seen the tectonic shifts at play as juries in Typography, Writing for Design and Writing for Advertising commented that talent has moved out of these craft areas, attracted by emergent media in digital and mobile, where awards for these craft skills have had a strong year.”