Each year, the International Design Excellence Awards highlight the best in design. It’s not an easy achievement. Thousands of products are submitted each year, but only a relative few emerge with awards. Over the last decade, winners in the consumer products category have come from a cross section of the economy, from electronics and office supplies to toys and cleaners.
Entries are judged in seven categories: innovation, user benefit, benefit to society and the environment, benefit to the client, visual/aesthetic appeal, usability/reliability, and internal factors and methods, like implementation. Experts from a variety of companies and design firms form the jury, which puts submissions through two rounds of vigorous examination. Gold, silver, and bronze awards are doled out, and one product is singled out as Best in Show.
Apple Leads the Pack
Apple has been the biggest force in the design awards over the last 10 years. It has won awards for the iPod, iPod mini, iPod Shuffle, iPhone, iTouch, iMac, and Mac Mini. In fact, the company has become the epitome of excellence in product design. It’s no coincidence that Apple went from an also-ran to a market powerhouse over the same period. Consumers obviously responded to the company’s award-winning products, snatching them up by the millions.
The IDEA judges don’t always hit the mark. Reliability and durability can sometimes be issues. Evenflo’s Triumph Convertible Car Seat was recalled for safety problems. Some products just don’t catch on. LG’s AN110 Projector was heralded for its ultraslim, wall-mountable design — very different than the chunky industrial-looking projectors that were once the norm. But if you search through LG’s current catalog, it’s nowhere to be found.
And sometimes the market changes so rapidly that innovative designs become dated almost overnight. Polaroid’s I-zone instant camera, which printed out mini-stickers, started a hot trend, but the company has…