Eclipse Gasoline Dispenser

Winner: 2000 IDEA Gold in Business & Industrial Products

Designers: Herbst LaZar Bell, Inc.

Client: Marconi Commerce Systems

This design won a gold in the 1995 IDEA national design awards sponsored by IDSA and Business Week magazine. According to juror Lisa Smith, president of Smith/Chororos, New York, the Personal Harbor workspace clearly met the criteria of excellence.

The Aeron ergonomic chair was designed by Bill Stumpf, FIDSA (1936-2006), of Stumpf, Weber + Associates; and Don Chadwick (b. 1936) of Chadwick & Associates, and was produced by Herman Miller, Inc. It was introduced in 1994. It departed from the traditional upholstery-over-cushioning design, and instead was made of a stretched, semi-transparent, flexible mesh called Pellicle.

The Apple PowerBook was one of the most revolutionary computers ever made. It changed the way people used computers. It was highly portable and lightweight, but functioned as effectively as a desktop. We call them laptops today, and many users never leave home without one.

The original PowerBook series—the 140 and 170—were designed by Robert Brunner, IDSA; Gavin Ivester, IDSA; Suzanne Pierce; Jim Halicho; and Eric Takahashi of Apple Computer; Michael Antonczak of Indesign; and Matt Barthelemy of Lunar Design for Apple Computer, Inc.

 OXO International—founded in 1989 by Sam Farber—introduced Good Grips kitchen utensils, with oversized, ergonomic handles.
 

The Mazda Miata was conceived in 1976 by Kenichi Yamamoto, head of R&D at Mazda in , and by then Motor Trend journalist Bob Hall. Each saw it as a direct descendant of small, inexpensive British 2-door roadsters of the 1960s like the Triumph Spitfire, the MG Midget, the Lotus Elan and the Austin-Healy Sprite.

  NeXT, Inc. was founded in 1985 by Steve Jobs and a number of former Apple employees, after Jobs resigned from Apple. Jobs engaged Paul Rand to design a brand identity and a 100-page brochure promoting the brand for $100,000.

The Ford Taurus and its companion, the Mercury Sable, were designed by Jack Telnack, Fritz Mayhew and the Ford staff. The design changed the failing fortunes of the US auto companies by creating a new “aero” look, which was characterized by softer, rounder, more aerodynamic forms than previous Detroit  styles. Some called it the “jelly bean” or “flying potato” because of its rounded look. For years, Detroit had been criticized for the sharp, angular and contorted metal forms that were the residual result of the Harley Earl influence of the 1950s.

Introduced in April 1984, the IIc was Apple’s first compact model, the first with user-friendly icon graphics, and the first with significant visual design quality. It was cited as one of the best designs of the year by Time magazine.

The world’s first commercial handheld cellular phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1983, and was introduced to the public in 1984 at a retail price of $3,995 after testing in the Chicago market. The 28-ounce phone was designed by Motorola’s industrial design team headed by manager Rudy Krolopp.