Hasta La Ideas

This just in: earlier today, Bill Moggridge, Director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, announced the winners and finalists of the 2011 National Design Awards Program.

As the nation’s design museum, Cooper-Hewitt raises awareness that design is everywhere. The work of this year’s National Design Awards winners represents extraordinary solutions to the design problems central to the landscape of daily life, from how we dress, shape our personal and private spaces, frame communication and interact with the world at large.

The full list of winners and finalists:

Photo Credit: Steve Marsel; Courtesy of Matthew Carter

The Lifetime Achievement award—recognizing an individual who has made a long-term contribution to the practice of design—goes to Matthew Carter. He has been designing typefaces for some five decades now, from hand-cut to digital, not to mention Linotype to Bitstream to his current foundry, Carter & Cone Type Inc.

Photo Credit: Baden Copeland; Courtesy of Steve Heller

The Design Mind award—recognizing an individual or firm that has affected a shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship—goes to Steven Heller. His broad approach to design and criticism includes editorial design, history, criticism and education, to name a few of his research interests, which he has explored as author and editor of 130+ books on graphic design, art and culture.

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