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German Design Standards: The decisive factor is quality

Design from Germany has become the symbol of high-class engineers’ work and quality products. Moreover, german design is characterised by a well-made relationship between tradition and the future. With good reason, the honoury title "Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2015" went to "Robert Sachon & Bosch Home Appliances Design Team". For decades, Bosch Home Appliances is associated with high standard and a high degree of innovation.

The brand Bosch is just one example for the success of German industrial design, which is continuously gaining popularity - worldwide. This was confirmed by Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot, with respect to the "Welt am Sonntag" for the contribution "Beauty of the Ratio": "The international demand for German industrial design is massive" and "the reason is, as trivial as it sounds, the quality. The perfect interplay of material usage and processing is decisive.

Ten years ago, the expert talked with leading figures on the characteristics of German design for his publication "german design standards". For the designer Dieter Rams the "german design standards" are set by "the reduction to essentials without eliminating the poetry". These standards are also characterised by a social and objectively rational aspect. The curator Barbara Bloemink linked german design with "its overall emphasis on high functionality - solidity, simplicity, precision, superior engineering and technology, and reliability". And Richard Koshalek recognised "an obsession with detail and 'actual' quality, as opposed to 'perceived' quality".

These statements have lost almost nothing of their actuality. However, the difference between actual and perceived quality of a product has been diminished. Because design has become the crucial economic advantage, whereby the degree of innovation and quality of a product must take place on the communication level and must be exercised in use.

Until 10 Februar 2016, established design luminaries, medium-sized businesses as well as up-and-coming professionals have the opportunity to submit their innovations to hope for one of the most coveted awards in the world.

Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016

Registration periods
Regular: until 26 January 2016
Latecomer: 27 January 2016 - 10 February 2016

Jury session: February 2016
Red Dot Gala: 4 July 2016

» Further information and registration