Hasta La Ideas

At the center of this month’s Munich’s Creative Business Week, Germany’s largest design event offering 9 days of design discussions, exhibitions, and networking opportunities is the iF DESIGN AWARD 2018 celebration honoring 75 outstanding professional design projects of the past year. 

The awards ceremony grand entrance

The event took place in Munich’s massive BMW Welt building

A look into the awards ceremony

The projects featured as winners in this year’s iF DESIGN AWARD demonstrate not just the design work of value in the present, but how design work of today will transform our vision of the future. While in Munich celebrating the awards, we chose a few of our favorite 2018 winners we saw while we were there:

Lumi Personal computer

Bringing together the world of furniture and technology, the Lumi personal computer disguises itself as an elegant desk lamp while actually having the ability to a project an interactive computer screen onto your workspace or a large video projection on the wall or ceiling. 

Pixel flexible furnishing system

The Pixel modular furniture system by Bene opens up the possibility of your workspace turning from static workspace to dynamic creative studio capable of reconfiguration at the drop of a hat. 

DPT-RP1 Digital paper

Technology inspired by the analog, the DPT-RP1 was designed to mimic the feeling of putting pen to paper.

Bosch Gluey Glue Gun

Use a glue gun? Well, you’ve never seen one quite like this. The Gluey by Bosch not only is sleek and ergonomic in a way that allows for precision, it also comes accommodates a number of different color and glitter glues to bring your crafts project to a whole new level. 

Loop Luminaire

The Loop wall light shines thanks to its flexibility according to your task. Whether you use it to highlight a piece of art on the wall or next to your bed as a reading light, the lighting panel can rotate a full 360 degrees in on swift motion. 

DreamWear Full Face Mask CPAP

Clunky CPAP machines for those with sleep apnea are well overdue for a second look, which is why this DreamWear mask from Philips is a welcome redesign. The innovative element of this machine is its airflow that is reallocated to the top of the mask instead of the front, making for a less obtrusive build.

BionicCobot Pneumatic robot

As robots enter the mainstream, it’s hard not to see them being a bit awkward and, sometimes, clumsy. This BionicCobot with its pneumatic arm that allows for the most delicate or forceful of handling proves this perception as being totally wrong. Designed by Festo AG & Co, this robot was specifically designed not to replace us, but as human support helping us perform tasks with a machine that might otherwise be impossible to perform by hand. 

Mr. Pip Board Game packaging

A past Core77 Design Awards winner, we love the clever configuration of Pip Tomkins studio’s packaging for their Double Cross game redesign.

VR. Ulm flying experience! 

Imagine being able to fly! Thanks to the VR Ulm Experience designed by Demodern for Interactive Media Foundation, you don’t have to. This interactive VR experience allows you to tour the city of Ulm, Germany is an entirely breathtaking new way.

Gaggenau Restaurant 1683

The Gaggenau restaurant pop-up restaurant, constructed in Manhattan and design by eins:33, is part-epicurean foray-part-epic storytelling experience. In a short press description, it explains what it felt like to dine in this fully immersive culinary environment: “The experience starts with a trip 333 years back…the guests step through a curtain to see a waterfall which encircles them as they pass through a corridor of mirrors. The guests find themselves midst of a Black Forest setting, with the sounds of water and chirping of birds.” 

DREAM Ring

As designers continue to tackle the issue of women’s health in developing countries, we are given a number of clever and innovative new technologies; this includes IDEAfree x Havas Korea DREAM Ring. The innovative factor of this menstrual cup is its construction made from silicone and disposable sugarcane vinyl, which not only makes it body-safe but also eco-friendly.

Wearable Harness Two-Way Radio (71)

This two-way harness radio by Motorola Solutions allows for workers in high-risk working conditions situations to communicate hands-free with ease, which is not only convenient but also in emergency situations can be life-saving.

High-Risk Pregnancy Toolkit, Philips (72)

This set of birthing product solutions for high-risk pregnancies by Philips Design are low cost and allow for participation from both the mother and the healthcare provider. The most interesting part of the kit is the redesigned, battery-less stethoscope allowing the mother to hear in while the healthcare worker checks the heartbeat. 

WOODIEHamburg prefab student dormitory (75)

This student dormitory uses the pre-fab model to construct a building consisting of 371 apartments. The individual wooden modules were designed so that they can be connected in all kinds of ways according to the most appropriate usage scenarios.

Congratulations to all this year’s winners!

Learn more about the iF DESIGN AWARDS here and how you can apply for the 2018 awards cycle