Red Dot Award 2016: looking back on the design highlights of the year
2016 was again an eventful and successful year for Red Dot that was characerised by numerous high points. In July, the design world celebrated the winners of the Red Dot Award: Product Design in Essen, Germany. In September, the awards ceremony of the was held in Singapore, and in November, the international creative scene convened in Berlin to honour the laureates of the Red Dot Award: Communication Design.
The award-winning products, communication projects and design concepts were presented to the public at large in numerous exhibitions in the Red Dot Design Museums and “on tour”. Once more, they documented the international nature of the Red Dot Design Award – amongst others in Zaragoza, Saint Etienne and Seoul. This year, Red Dot celebrated a small jubilee with regard to the Xiamen International Design Week. This was already the fifth time that Red Dot has organised the trade fair in successful cooperation with the Xiamen Media Group in China.
Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot, had a good reason to celebrate, too: On 1 April it was his 25th service anniversary as the head of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen. This is the institution which, for the first time 15 years ago, held the design award under the “Red Dot” brand. In 2016 more than ever, the quality seal is one of the strongest symbols of high quality design which is internationally accepted.
Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016
This year’s Red Dot jury entered with 41 design professionals from 25 nations the judging of all entries from all around the world. The team of experts awarded the sought-after seal of quality for good design, the “Red Dot”. Only the best entries were bestowed the honour of the top award, the “Red Dot: Best of the Best”, while some products won an Honourable Mention for a particularly well-executed aspect of design work.
All laureates were duly celebrated on 4 July at the Red Dot Gala in the Aalto-Theater in Essen, Germany, and at the Designers’ Night in the Red Dot Design Museum Essen. In keeping with tradition, Professor Dr. Peter Zec hosted the impressive gala. The founder and CEO of Red Dot welcomed respected guests onto the stage. 1,200 audience members saw how the laureates of the top individual award, the “Red Dot: Best of the Best”, received their trophies on stage.
The highlight of the award ceremony was the honouring of the Red Dot: Design Team of the Year. Blackmagic Industrial Design Team led by Simon Kidd received the title of honour and surprised the audience with a video film of their own. Subsequently, Robert Sachon from the previous winners Bosch Home Appliances Design Team, handed over the “Radius” challenge cup to Simon Kidd and his team, thus officially crowning them “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2016” together with Prof. Dr. Peter Zec.
During the Designers’ Night, the special exhibitions “Design on Stage” and “Creative Video Revolution by Blackmagic Design” were opened. While the first showed the competition’s award-winning products for five weeks, the Red Dot: Design Team of the Year traditionally presented itself with a self-designed and implemented presentation in the Red Dot Design Museum Essen.
Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2016
This year again, the Red Dot Award: Communication Design was in search of the best communication solutions and advertising campaigns. Participants from across the world were able to demonstrate their skills in a total of 21 categories. For the first time, E-Commerce and Retail Design were included in the main entry categories. The fact that submissions came from in total 46 different countries was proof that the communication design competition is increasingly being seen as an international benchmark. The numerous communication and design projects were evaluated by a jury of 26 industry experts. In an appraisal process lasting several days, they decided who would be awarded the Red Dot this year. In 2016, only 0,8 percent of the works submitted were honoured with the Red Dot: Best of the Best – the award for outstanding design expertise. The winners of the Red Dot: Grand Prix have reason to be especially pleased. This year, the highest individual award was bestowed a total of nine times.
The award for “Red Dot: Agency of the Year” this year went to Serviceplan. With its innovative campaigns, this partner-led agency proved to be the strongest service provider as demonstrated by its 11 Red Dot and five Red Dot: Best of the Best awards in this year’s competition. “Good design is today the first step in reaching people. A correct message incorrectly packaged is worthless, particularly with regard to digital media and the speed at which they are consumed. I am therefore especially pleased about winning the ‘Red Dot: Agency of the Year’ award”, comments Alexander Schill, chief creative officer of the Serviceplan Group.
The Audi group gained recognition for its innovative and continuous design solutions as the “Red Dot: Brand of the Year 2016”. This year, Audi has won over 16 Red Dot Awards as well as two Red Dot: Best of the Best awards – and therefore the honorary title “Red Dot Brand of the Year ”. “It is a great privilege for us to receive our fourth honorary Red Dot award since 2010. It reflects our goal authentically to convey the essence of the four rings wherever people come into contact with our brand. The impressive winning streak at the Red Dot Design Award is a wonderful endorsement of the Audi team as a whole and of our joint work with highly effective partners”, says Giovanni Perosino, Audi’s marketing communications manager
4 November 2016, marked the celebration of the highlight of the Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2016. The best designers of the year were presented with their trophies at the Red Dot Gala in Berlin. As is customary, the winner of the Red Dot: Junior Prize, endowed with 10,000 Euros, was also only announced at the Red Dot Gala. This year, the award went to Taiwan: Mu-Yi Chi and Yi-Sin Lin of Tatung University were honoured with the coveted prize for talented young designers for their “Meet, or Not” film animation. fter the Red Dot Gala, winners, jurors and fans of design partied the night away at the Designers’ Night in Berlin’s E-Werk. The winners’ exhibition “Design on Stage” was shown exclusively for one night only at the official after show party. It presented all the projects that won an award in this year’s competition.
One day later, on 5 November, the exhibition “Best Communication Design – Red Dot Winners Selection 2016” was opened in the Museum for Communication Berlin. The studio show includes all “Red Dot: Best of the Best” and “Red Dot: Grand Prix” award winners. The exhibition also shows all the successful projects of the Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2016. Under the motto “Icons of brand design”, Professor Dr. Peter Zec, Founder and CEO of the Red Dot Design Award, gave a guided tour of the exhibition on Tuesday, 29 November 2016. On the basis of the exhibited projects, the design explained the latest developments in the fields of advertising and marketing. The presentation runs until 15 January 2017.
Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2016
The Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2016 saw creative minds form 60 countries participating. 245 concepts were distinguished by the international expert jury with the Red Dot. 42 concepts were honoured with the top prize in the competition for ground-breaking design, the Red Dot: Best of the Best. And 53 concepts were credited with an Honourable Mention for their excellent detail solutions.
In 2016, the Red Dot: Luminary was awarded to a design concept which is a forerunner in a new era of driverless cars: the “Google Self-Driving Car”. It was described by Red Dot juror Prof. Carlos Hinrichsen as “a mobility concept that has been already known, but is not any less revolutionary. It is changing what we now understand as mobility, and is shifting or transforming the paradigms in the automotive industry by integrating technology, design and innovation in the service of human beings to improving their daily lives.” All laureates were honoured at the Red Dot Gala in the Red Dot Design Museum Singapore on 22 September 2016.
China Good Design 2016
In 2016, with “China Good Design”, the independent design competition for the People’s Republic of China based on the strict statutes of Red Dot was conducted for the second time. Its goal is to discover good designs in China from an international perspective, aiming to improve the future design atmosphere in China and expressing Chinese design culture as well as promoting Chinese design and culture worldwide. In 2016, the highest single distinction “China Good Design Gold” was awarded 15 times, 158 products were bestowed with the quality seal “China Good Design” and 20 products were awarded with an Honourable Mention.
Red Dot exhibitions 2016
Again, Red Dot presented the award-winning products, communication works and design concepts in special and touring exhibitions around the globe:
24 September 2015 – Summer 2017
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Design Identities: Award-winning products from the Netherlands and Germany selected by Red Dot
24 October 2015 – 4 September 2016
Vernissage: 23 October 2015
Cube Design Museum, Kerkrade, Netherlands
¡Viva el Diseño! Red Dot winners from Spain
25 October 2015 – 28 February 2016:
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Best Communication Design – Red Dot Winners Selection 2015
8 November 2015 – 10 January 2016
Vernissage: 7 November 2015
Museum for Communication, Berlin, Germany
Smart Materials and Solutions for better Product Design
19 November 2015 – 10 January 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
World’s Best Product Design 2015/2016 – Taiwanese and international winners of the Red Dot Award
3 December 2015 – 13 March 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Taipei
Tõnis Käo: “Design as Experiment”, Retrospective
22 January – 3 April 2016
Vernissage: 21 January 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
15 – A review of the year’s events in posters
30 January – 5 February 2016
Vernissage: 29 January 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
World’s Best Communication Design and Highlights from NRW
18 March – 29 May 2016
Vernissage: 17 March 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
World’s Best Communication Design 2015/2016 – Taiwanese and international highlights of the Red Dot Award
22 April – 7 August 2016
Vernissage: 21 April 2016
Red Dot Design Area Taipei
¡Viva el Diseño! Red Dot winners from Spain
11 May – 18 September 2016
Vernissage: 11 Mai 2016
Museum Pablo Serrano, Saragossa, Spain
International Packaging Design – Selected by Red Dot
9 June – 30 October 2016
Vernissage: 8 June 2016
Museum Huelsmann, Bielefeld, Germany
Design on Stage – Winners Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016
5 – 31 July 2016
Vernissage: 4 July 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Creative Video Revolution by Blackmagic Design
5 July – 28y August 2016
Vernissage: 4 July 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Formosa Forms – Contemporary Tradition in Taiwanese Design
5 – 10 July 2016
Halle 6, Zollverein, Essen, Germany
La valeur du design – Les produits français et internationaux primés par Red Dot design award
15 September 2016 – 8 January 2017
Vernissage: 14 September 2016
Cité du Design, St. Etienne, France
Digital Tools for Innovative Design – solidThinking
20 September – 3 October 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Making a Difference / A Difference in Making
27 September – 30 October 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Design on Stage – Winners Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2016
4 November 2016
E-Werk, Berlin, Germany
Best Communication Design – Red Dot Winners Selection
6 November 2016 – 15 January 2017
Vernissage: 5 November 2016
Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Design Korea 2016
9 – 13 November 2016
Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center – Kintex Seoul, South Korea
DANSK LYS – Lighting and Lamp Design from Denmark
15 November 2016 – 15 January 2017
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Under the Sign of the Circle: Red Dot awarded Innovations from Japan
25 November 2016 – 19 March 2017
Vernissage: 24 November 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Juxtapositions: Red Dot awarded Product Benchmarks from Taiwan and Abroad
7 December 2016 – 23 April 2017
Red Dot Design Area Taipei
Events and more 2016
25th service anniversary of Professor Dr. Peter Zec
1 April 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Concert by the KJO Symphony Orchestra
27 April 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Red Dot Gala & Designers’ Night (Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016)
4 July 2016
Aalto-Theater and Red Dot Design Museum Essen
Lecture by Professor Dr. Peter Zec at CONVERGE 2016
20 September 2016
SANAA building, Essen, Germany
Red Dot Gala (Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2016)
22 September 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Singapore
Lecture by Professor Dr. Peter Zec at the Amazing Night
30 September 2016
Taipei Arena, Taiwan
Announcement of Professor Dr. Peter Zec as honorary citizen of the City of Seoul
28 October 2016
Seoul, South Korea
Xiamen International Design Week – Red Dot in China 2016
29 October – 1 November 2016
Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center, Xiamen, China
Awards ceremony China Good Design 2016
30 October 2016
Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center, Xiamen, China
Red Dot Gala & Designers’ Night (Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2016)
4 November 2016
Konzerthaus Berlin & E-Werk Berlin, Germany
“Icons of brand design”: guided tour with Professor Dr. Peter Zec
29 November 2016
Museum for Communication Berlin, Germany
Design objects under the hammer: charity auction 2016
4 December 2016
Red Dot Design Museum Essen
