The 62 winners of this year's prestigious red dot award: Product Design were announced on March 13 after being selected from over 4,000 entries from 70 countries by a jury of industry experts.
Winners of this year's red dot product design awards were selected by the jury based on the degree of innovation, functionality, ergonomics, ecological soundness, emotional content and other criteria.
The 62 winning products span a total of 18 categories: living rooms and bedrooms; households; kitchens; tableware and decoration; bathrooms, spas and air conditioning; lighting and light design; gardens; outdoor, leisure and sports; fashion, lifestyle and accessories; watches and jewelry; interior design; architecture and urban design; offices; industry and crafts; life science and medicine; automobiles, transportation, commercial and water vehicles; entertainment, technology and cameras; and computers and information technology.
This year's winners span a broad range of ideas, solutions and concepts such as the iPad Smart Cover designed by Apple to protect the screen of their tablet devices; an innovative electric Smart Bike from Daimler; a unique interior design furnishing system for open plan offices known as Mindport from Lista Office; an energy-saving fridge freezer from Keicheldesign; and the UNO coffee machine which was designed by Delica AG to reduce both the energy consumption and wastage associated with capsule-coffee machines.
The winning products in each of these categories will be honored in an awards ceremony held on July 2 in Essen, Germany, before being showcased in a special exhibition at the red dot Design Museum, also in Essen, starting the following day.
The red dot design awards began in 1955 and honor innovative design across the categories of Product Design, Communication Design -- which is awarded for corporate design and advertising -- and Design Concept -- which focuses on young, upcoming talent, conceptual designs and ideas.
iPad users can get a glimpse of some of the world's most innovative design concepts, as selected by the red dot design awards via the official iPad application red dot design concept yearbook 2011/2012 Full which was released on March 2 and costs $9.99.
Later in the year some of the top consumer household products will also be honored at the New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF) which is next held from August 18 -22. The biannual trade show attracts exhibitors from around the world and honors products in the Bloggers' Choice Awards, Eco Choice Awards and the Baby and Child Best New Product Awards among others.
