Wrapping up our second year, the Core77 Design Awards is proud to honor over 200 award-winning design innovations from around the world. Representing 17 categories of design enterprise, the Core77 Design Awards celebrates the richness of the design profession and the brilliance of its practitioners by encouraging designers, researchers and writers a unique opportunity to communicate the intent, rigor and passion behind their efforts.
A truly global effort, the Core77 Design Awards would not be possible without the insight and participation of our international juries. Representing 13 cities in 8 countries, the results of the 2012 Awards program encompass the perspectives of 74 outstanding jury members who shared their thoughts, directly with you, in our live jury announcements. From Paris to Pretoria, Chicago to Changsha, the Core77 Design Awards is truly a current reflection on the global state of design.
Fort Standard's Balancing Blocks are a perennial favorite in the NYC's ever-growing pop-up design store scene (including the Herman Miller co-sign): the faceted oblong blocks are jewel-like yet abstract a modernist take on nostalgia for play. The polychromatic polyhedra aptly encapsulate the Brooklyn duo's minimalist approach to form and materials.
The clever promo video gives new meaning to 'block party':
The painted oak blocks, which are sold in sets of ten, are also available year-'round through Areaware (though they're currently out of stock til October).
Disney's iconic "Prototype Community" inspired a series of poster compositions by Stephen Christ of Morton Grove, IL, who is releasing the complete set of 11 posters on Kickstarter in anticipation of the theme park's 30th anniversary this October. The artist, an industrial designer by trade, originally created the self-initiated homage a couple years back, but he's just launched a modest Kickstarter campaign (he's made $1,500 towards his $5,000 goal) in order to share his work with a broader audience, with the "ultimate goal to be accepted into Disney's Festival of Masters that showcases the best Disney artists around the world."
October 1, 1982 - This was the day EPCOT Center opened its doors at Walt Disney World in Florida. Originally planned as an entire futuristic city, this innovative theme park was a gamble. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before. It was a display of everything the natural world has to offer, everything humans are capable of, and what the future holds. It was also one of the most well-designed and interesting places on earth.
One of my favorite parts of EPCOT Center was the logos that designated each pavilion. They were as basic as could be, stripping down a broad idea into a simple symbol. I wanted to celebrate this, so I expanded each logo into a fully fleshed out work of art. A simple line art drawing turned into a full color poster.
The flattened, color-block aesthetic hearkens back to Constructivism, while the vector icons evoke the much more recent Noun Project. Faux-distressing notwithstanding, the wonderful artwork transcends mere modernist nostalgia, capturing the optimistic spirit of its subject matter.
Two-year-old Emma was born with anthrogryposis (AMC), a rare congenital disease that affects muscle strength. At a family conference, Emma's mother learned about the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), an assistive device made of hinged metal bars and resistance bands that enables people with underdeveloped arms to play and feed themselves.
Tariq Rahman and Whitney Sample of the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children had created an early prototype of the WREX, that worked for children as young as six. But the device was attached to a wheelchair and some children with AMC, including Emma, had use of their legs. The early version of the WREX was just too large and heavy for a child of Emma's size.
Rahman and Sample found that, with the use of 3D printers, they were able to create a lightweight and flexible working prosthetic for Emma, that is customizable with easily replicated broken parts. The custom exoskeletons are printed in ABS plastic and attached to a plastic vest. Because of the ease of manufacturing, the exoskeleton can grow with the child which makes 3D printing especially exciting for those working in pediatric care.
Currently, fifteen children now use a custom 3D printed WREX device. Watch the full video of Emma's story after the jump.
Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com
Designer: Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, Toyota Motor Europe/Kansei Design
Location: Copenhagen, DK
Category: Speculative Design
Award: Professional Winner
This concept re-defines the relationship between passengers in a vehicle and the world around it by transforming the vehicle's windows into an interactive interface. The concepts generated in this project aimed to re-define human-nature relationship in the context of near future mobility, expose Europeans to Japanese values and culture and use this experience to trigger emotions.
How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
The project team discovered that we had won the Speculative Design category by watching the online stream on the Core77 website. CIID is very international and we were scattered across various computers and countries. The Toyota team were in Brussels and Japan. One CIID team member was in Spain, two were in Italy, and the rest of us were gathered around a computer in the CIID Consulting office in Copenhagen. We were continuously refreshing the twitter stream and our eyes were glued to Bruce Sterling as he announced the results. When we heard the words "Window To The World", our screams travelled throughout the building!! Our colleagues could hear us two floors above - so they knew without asking that we had won!
What's the latest news or development with your project?
Since developing Window To The World, CIID Consulting has continued to have a successful on-going collaboration with Toyota. The vision of Window To The World has proven to captivate many audiences both on and offline. The video has had well over a million views, it has been featured on CNN, and published in many newspapers including The Independent (UK) and The Chicago Tribune. A working prototype of the Window To The World interface is now exhibited in the Toyota Flagship store on the Champs Elysee in Paris. Winning a Core77 design award is a great honor to add to these achievements and we look forward to further successful collaborations between CIID and Toyota in the coming months.
What is one quick anecdote about your project?
The original storyboard for the Window To The World video was set in beautiful countryside, with rolling hills and the sun shining in the background. However, we soon realised we were in Denmark (one of the flattest countries on the planet), it was winter, there was no sun and only a few hours of light a day! Not to be put off by such trivial matters, we went ahead as planned, fueled with enthusiasm - just with a lot of scarves on!
What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
The 'a ha' moment for this project was when we built the first working prototype of the Window To The World interface using rear projection, IR technology and some code. The physical prototype itself was by no means beautiful but the experience it promoted was. By using these quick prototyping methods we were instantly able to test the idea with people in order for us to get feedback and refine the overall vision. It was an amazing experience to see people engaging with the idea and enjoying the interaction - and it was interesting for us to understand the different behaviours it promoted. What was initially a simple sketch and paper scenario of an idea, was brought to life in the real world where people could experience it for themselves.
Paddy Donnelly designed poster, a backers gift for Kickstarting the 3rd Season of 99% Invisible. An ode to the audio cassette and a time when a pencil could solve all of our problems.
One of the coolest things about visiting a design studio and shadowing a designer is seeing their work in action. It's amazing to see a design come to life, and to watch designers ask and answer all the questions that designers do. That's also the beauty of solid design writing and journalism—the best writers are storytellers who find the tidbits that make design such a compelling field.
"I felt there was a real way to tell these stories in a cool way. And you can tell that the awareness of different aspects of design is at an all time high," said Roman Mars, the producer, host and founder of 99% Invisible, a popular radio show about design. As a host for Public Radio Exchange, Mars brought his public radio experience to the design show and met with numerous designers and architects to refine the concept.
99% Invisible host Roman Mars.
Everyone he spoke with mentioned a quote from legendary designer and innovator Buckminster Fuller, who talked about the "99% invisible" forces that shape the world and with this inspiration, the show was born. What started as a 1 minute spot soon evolved into a 4 1/2 minute radio show with even longer episodes for the popular podcast.
While it might seem difficult to talk about such visual work in an aural medium, Mars has a knack for finding the remarkable in daily life. And it's by identifying the compelling stories behind design that his program shines. In one popular episode, "Frozen Music," he talks about just how radical it was record music:
But no effect has been as world changing as that original innovation: freezing music in time onto a recording, where a single version of a song, a single performance of a song, became the song. An inherently mutable method of communication was fundamentally changed.
"That's sort of my favorite part," Mars explained, "a little factoid about something that makes you see that thing differently and that makes you appreciate it and find some kind of genius or wonder in everyday things. I tend not to cover amazing or innovative design that makes you ooh and aah."
"I kind of like to cover manhole covers," he continued. "That's more my beat."
The Paper of Record has recently taken an interest, plunging some 80 feet below Midtown Manhattan to unearth both the logistical and human side of the story of the Second Avenue Subway, with photos by Richard Barnes. Along with the video, it's a bit more subterranean transit porn for those of us who give a schist.
"Geology defines the way you drive the tunnel," [Engineering Manager Amitabha] Mukherjee said. The bedrock below Second Avenue and for much of the rest of Manhattan is schist—a hard, gray black rock shot through with sheets of glittery mica. Some 500 million years ago, Manhattan was a continental coastline that collided with a group of volcanic islands known as the Taconic arc. That crash crumpled layers of mud, sand and lava into schist, lending it an inconsistent structure and complicating tunneling: in some places, the schist holds firmly together, creating self-supporting arches; in others, it's broken and prone to shattering, forcing workers to reinforce the tunnel as they go to keep it from falling.
The first time New York confronted its bedrock to build a subway, in 1900, the method was "cut and cover": nearly 8,000 laborers given to gambling, fighting and swearing were hired to pickax and dynamite their way through streets and utility lines for two miles. Their efforts were quick—they finished in four years—but their blasts smashed windows and terrorized carriage horses. Tunnels collapsed, killing workers and swallowing storefronts.
The felicitously parallel universe of a certain concurrent blockbuster notwithstanding, the images offer a look at a work-in-progress on a prodigious—yet largely unseen—scale. The first two-mile span of the once-fabled Second Avenue Subway, from 63rd St to 96th, is set to open in December 2016 (the earlier set of photos was from the less ambitious crosstown line, which will mark the westernmost terminal of the subway system when it opens in 2014/2015). Insofar as the new track is scheduled to open in four score and seven years since the original proposal (in the flush-then-very-lean times of 1929), the MTA's ongoing budget woes have been the real bane of workaday Gothamites.
Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com
The NuBone Supplements Packaging is designed with the user experience in mind to improve the visual and data communication between the consumer, product and its users. The new fitted packaging is plastic free, recyclable, and enriches the product selection process.
How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
We learn that we had been awarded the prize by the jury while we were watching the live-broadcast on the announcement day.
What's the latest news or development with your project?
Our project, NuBone, in addition to the Core77 Design Award it has also been recognized by the Dieline Packaging Competition as a Best Packaging Award under Pet category. We are currently looking for partners to incorporate the winning package design for dog nutrition products in the market.
What is one quick anecdote about your project?
We had done numerous consumer validation tests as part of the design process. During the tests, we had noticed that consumers tend to gravitate toward our package first among the many product on the shelves. The result of these observations strongly convinced us of NuBone's potential to improve user-product interaction.
What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
We were both surprised by the low value that the packaging of dog nutritional bones were perceived among other pet products. We realized that there would be a huge potential to improve, and increase its value through the design of its packaging.We wanted the bone to speak for itself of its ingredients and flavors. Intrigued by the bone's relationship with its source, we have put together visually the bone alongside of the raw ingredients (i.e. in meats, poultry, and fish), and then everything just clicked for us. The meat and the drumstick were extremely communicated our message seamlessly. We then applied the same concept to rest of the flavors.
New York residents are generally pretty savvy about waste management companies' rules for putting out recycling—glass and plastics in transparent bags, newspaper and cardboard bundled—and I remember seeing (somewhat baffling) rows of recycling bins in Tokyo, but it requires diligence on a broad scale. Hence, statistics such as: "The average Dane generates about 624 kg of waste per year [but only] 12% of the daily waste is recycled."
Cause for concern though this may be, the situation also presents an opportunity. Denmark's largest waste mangement company Vestforbrænding is partnering with Join.dk to hold an international design competition to motivate Danes to "Sort Your Trash Can."
The brief? To create a "version of a user-friendly sorting-can that fits the private Danish household." Entries will be judged on five criteria: behavior change, design communication, flexibility, context and functionality.
...citizens are not just citizens. They are a collection of very diverse people with different needs. There are large families and small families, single people, older people and some with special needs. Some people need big bins, others need small bins. Some citizens would like to have their garbage cans out of sight, while others want to flash their environmental awareness. Some want their trash out by the garage, others want it right outside the kitchen window.
But there's a twist, of sorts: the community is encouraged to comment, tossing out ideas for a chance to win additional prizes such as an iPad 3.
The ideal process is to upload a brainstorm sketch of your initial thoughts as early as possible, while end users, Vestforbænding and everybody else on Join.dk can give suggestions for improvements of your idea. If lots of people like and comment on your design or idea and you also implement modifications, your design will get more positive attention.
Say the words "travel wallet" and one of the the last words that would come to your mind as a description is "compact." Travel wallets are meant to be the one place where you keep all your important travel documents and on a long haul journey, that can mean anything from passports to airplane boarding passes to that 3 page print out of your itinerary. In this situation, what you need is space and that's not a quality to apply the less is more concept.
Bellroy, an Australian bag company is attempting to do just this with a compact, billfold version of a carry all wallet. I had a chance to take it on the road for a weekend cross country trip to the left coast and knock it around.
The first thing you'll notice is that "compact" is a relative term. As men's wallets get smaller and smaller to accommodate a few bank cards and bills, the Bellroy Travel Wallet in comparison looks positively Mastodonian:
But the dimensions of the wallet was built around a standard passport, which slips right into a pocket when you flip the thing open:
A good design call on this feature, most customs and immigrations folks want you to hand over your papers unencumbered by a fancy case. And if you're paranoid about losing things like me and pat yourself down at least three times a day to make sure you didn't forget something, having your passport front and center means less time freaking out.
The billfold area is divided into two sections—one for money and the other for other travel documents—tickets, receipts, folding up pieces of paper. The size was just right for my boarding passes and it was good to have everything airport security people want to check in one place:
Core77 Design Awards 2012 - See the Winners!
Case Study: Creating the 21st Century Jean
RCA Graduate Show 2012
Metal Molding in the South of Brazil
graphic Modern
Sappi Ideas That Matter Grants
Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design, by Chris Lefteri
Learn for Life: New Architecture for New Learning
Suspending Disbelief for Student Concept Designs
Howest Industrial Design Center's Upcoming Creative Prototyping Summer School
Neat Car - DeltaWing Le Mans Racer
Ouya by fuseproject
Core77 Design Awards 
SHIFTBoston 2012 Glow Competition 
Paddy Donnelly designed poster, a backers gift for Kickstarting the 3rd Season of 99% Invisible. An ode to the audio cassette and a time when a pencil could solve all of our problems.
99% Invisible host Roman Mars.
Biomimicry 3.8: What Would You Ask Nature
Changing the Face of Motocross
20 Years of Kikkerland
Discovering Chinese Design
Photos by Richard Barnes for the New York Times
Reporting by Tony Ho Loke
CORE77 DESIGN AWARDS 2012
DESIGNING 007
FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW 2012
SHOW RCA 2012
100 Interiors Around the World
Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design, by Chris Lefteri
Book Review - "Learn for Life: New Architecture for New Learning"
Book Review - Introducing: Visual Identities for Small Businesses
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Visualizing Change: An Interview with The Noun Project
Apple, EPEAT and Design for the 21st Century
Case Study: Creating the 21st Century Jean
Engineering Efficiency: Q+A with Alex Knox, Dyson's Industrial Design Director
London Olympics 2012: Nike Unveils Pro TurboSpeed & Medal Stand Collection for US Athletes
