IDEA 2012 jury contemplating finalists at the Henry Ford Museum last year.

This year the number of entries submitted to IDSA’s International Design Excellence Awards grew by 18 percent. And, that increased participation was on a global scale. Not only were submissions from the US up from previous years, but this year IDEA also saw an upswing in entries from countries in Europe and Asia. Most notably, Germany’s participation increased by an impressive 185 percent.

IDSA members in good standing are invited to nominate candidates for the Academy of Fellows, the Personal Recognition Award, Education Awards and the Special Award. The deadline for nominations has been extended to May 17, 2013.

Academy of Fellows recommendations are for members in good standing who have earned the special respect and affection of the membership through distinguished service to the society and to the profession as a whole.

Each year IDSA encourages, rewards and celebrates excellence in industrial design education with the Student Merit Awards.

The 2013 Student Merit Awards, sponsored by Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp., have officially begun! To kick off the awards process, IDSA has contacted all student chapter advisors, who will assist student chapter leaders in getting their competitions under way. Resources for participating and judging will be provided.

File attachments: 

2013 Student Merit Award Guidelines Eval Form.doc

HERNDON, Va., Nov. 9, 2012 – On Dec. 3, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) will open its International Design Excellence Awards® (IDEA) 2013 competition to designers, students and companies worldwide. For 33 years, IDEA has recognized design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts. For the fourth year, The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich., will house the winners in its permanent collection.

A jury of independent design experts will use the following criteria in selecting winning designs:

Every year we see some of the most innovative and thought-provoking products and concepts come out of the IDEA competition crowned as gold winners. These projects always leave us craving more information about the approach, their inspiration and what made them stand out from the other entries each category.
 

Q&A with Rob Watters, IDSA, senior industrial designer, DW Product Development Inc

Q&A with Kimberly Chow, Designmatters at Art Center College of Design

In some parts of the world, public health dilemmas arise from the difficulties citizens have in finding ways to wash their hands. A project at the Art Center College of Design gave rise to one simple, elegant and potentially powerful solution for the clean hands problem, Balde a Balde. We talked with one of the student designers about the solution and how it came to be:

What was the initial inspiration for Balde a Balde?

Q&A with Ted Rapone, Weiland Healthcare

Hospital rooms are not designed to accommodate the needs of visitors. They can be made to accommodate a visitor’s needs, but that often requires some ingenuity on the part of a visitor. Clearly, there’s an opportunity there for better design. One effort to achieve better design of the experience of visiting a hospital room is, we think, outstanding. The IDEA-winning SleepToo is a single piece of furniture that serves a number of functions. In this interview, we learn a bit about how this solution came to be:

Q&A with Michael Kim, Art Center College of Design

Sometimes, a design comes along with the express purpose of disrupting everything you think you know regarding what is possible (and logical) about a particular experience. DIGIFI: Audionauts is such a design. We talked briefly with designer Michael Kim about his motives and his process:

This is an audacious piece of work. What inspired the project?

Q&A with Omer Haciomeroglu, product & concept designer, Umea Institute of Design

Firefighting is a noble profession. It’s also an experience that is particularly difficult to design for as some of the most noble and brilliant concepts are also quite difficult to commercialize. One concept the IDEA 2012 jury found to be quite brilliant, C-thru Smike Diving Helmet, addresses the need to provide better visibility for navigating dark, smoky, treacherous environments. We talked with the designer about the difficult path he’s begun to navigate: