On 6 December 2007, the red dot design museum held the awards presentation of this year’s red dot award: communication design. More than 600 guests from 14 nations celebrated the winners in the impressive atmosphere of the former boiler house of the Zeche Zollverein colliery. The winners of the honorary prizes awarded to the best entries of the competition were, like every year, kept on tenterhooks until the very end. It was not until this point in the awards presentation that the three winners of the red dot: grand prix were announced and the best student entry, “Type Generator”, received the red dot: junior prize. All works will be on display until 6 January 2008 in the red dot design museum.
The “red dot: junior prize” worth €10,000 was awarded to the junior designers Ludovic Varone and Remo Caminada from the University of Design and Art Zurich for their computer programme “Type Generator”, which was judged best student work in the competition. “The thought-out programme which enables creating one’s own fonts impressed the expert jury and managed to win against its tough competitors,” said Tyron Montgomery, juror of the Interactive Media category, praising the entry in his laudatory speech.
red dot: grand prix awarded three times
This year, the red dot: grand prix went to three works. As the best entry in the Corporate Design category “Dare: The Ultimate IP Challenge” by Intellectual Property Office in Singapore received a grand prix. The entry “Mercedes Benz - bionic car” by Stuttgart-based agency jangled nerves GmbH won the honorary prize as the best work in the “Information Design/Public Space” category. The interactive website “adidas mi Innovation Center” by Mutabor for adidas AG, Herzogenaurach, received a red dot: grand prix for its original and complex design concept.
The host Professor Dr. Peter Zec, president of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen and initiator of the red dot award, welcomed Tyron Montgomery, Holger Windfuhr and Professor Kurt Weidemann as representatives of the expert jury on stage, who personally presented the winners with their awards.
Large response in the “Packaging design” category
This year, the competition focused on the “Packaging Design” category in particular. In order to enhance the status of this category within the competition, red dot for the first time worked together with the European Brand Design Association (PDA). Rob Vermeulen, the vice president of the association, and Jean Jacques Schaffner of Schaffner & Conzelmann, Switzerland, came as representatives of the PDA. “This year, the response from designers in the ‘Packaging Design’ category was particularly large,” praised Peter Zec. “In contrast to the previous year the number of entries in this category increased by more than 100% and the design quality is exceptionally high.”
The event featured performances by the Swiss musicians “Blehmuzik”, whose CD cover received a red dot in the “Packaging Design” category in this year’s competition. After the awards presentation the festive opening of the special exhibition took place in the red dot design museum.
Special exhibition and yearbook
The “red dot award: communication design 2007” special exhibition is presenting all award-winning works to the public in Essen, Germany, until 6 January 2008.
Right on time for the awards presentation the “red dot communication design yearbook 2007/2008” was published by the red dot in-house publishing company, red dot edition.
red dot: grand prix
Dare: The Ultimate IP Challenge (Annual Report)
Client
IPOS (Intellectual Property Office of Singapore), Singapore
Design
Epigram, Singapore
Managing Director
Edmund Wee
Graphic Design
Kelvin Lok
Illustration
Michael Ng (Mindflyer)
Copywriting
Roger Hiew
Project Management
Sharon Lam
The Work:
Long gone are the days when annual reports of private and public companies were about publishing the final figures and listing the balance of accounts. Today it is equally important that this rather dry material is presented in such a way that it makes the reader curious and is interesting to read. Agencies specialising in annual reports have existed for quite some time now, and every year many new successful and original designs are created that present new approaches. “Dare: The Ultimate IP Challenge” is such an example. The annual report for the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore combines the company’s services – the support, the expansion and the valuation of the country’s creative and intellectual achievements – with a real game. The cover of the book doubles as the game board. Apart from tips and the rules of the game the annual report also contains the dice and tokens. The reader/player can directly accept the challenge and on their way to the finish not only get to know the opportunities and pitfalls a business idea faces in the global market, but also the services and successes of IPOS.
The designer:
Epigram is a design consultancy specialising in publication design, corporate identity and environmental graphics. It was founded in Singapore in 1991 and has received more than 100 international awards for its works since. The design consultancy has gained worldwide recognition above all for its annual reports, which are based on concise creative ideas and extraordinary artistic characteristics.
Epigram design team on “Comprehensibility by analogy”:
How do you cook up something fresh using stale ingredients? What is seemingly obvious in the culinary world is rather less black and white in the realm of corporate communication. Increasingly, design firms are expected to turn fish eggs into caviar. They reach for analogies and, if done right, add grey matter to an annual report and, by extrapolation, to the organisation putting out the report. It requires a rudimentary level of thinking. And that, if nothing else, engages the reader. They think, they get the message, they like the shared experience. Comprehensibility by analogy, like it or not, is here to stay – and understandably so.
Mercedes-Benz – bionic car (Exhibition)
Client
DaimlerChrysler AG, Stuttgart
Design
jangled nerves GmbH, Stuttgart
The Work:
What will the world of tomorrow look like and how will we live? Exploring the future is as fascinating as it is essential for our society, science and economy. However, there is hardly any industry that consistently has to foresee trends and lifestyles and anticipate today what life will be like in six or seven years like the automobile industry. This is the period of time between the first rough draft and the finally functioning car which has to be ahead of current standards in technology, safety and consumption as well as sense of form, style and choice of materials. The “bionic car” concept is exemplary of the extraordinary paths the industry pursues to provide an idea of future innovation and technologies.
In order to develop the “bionic car”, biologists, bionicists and automobile researchers made an expedition into the animal world and discovered that the angular boxfish came close to the automobile engineers’ ideal. The touring exhibition, designed by jangled nerves, allowed the visitors to experience the visionary vehicle project by presenting a self-illuminating sculpture of the fish, the original vehicle and a 1:4 model together on an amorphous pedestal immersed in blue, animated water reflections. Holographic projections in the background created the effect that the real and the virtual layer merged.
The designers:
jangled nerves GmbH | Thomas Hundt, Ingo Zirngibl
jangled nerves was founded in Stuttgart in 1998 and today employs some 30 staff in the fields of conception, design, architecture, film, editorial work, search, technology, programming and project management. jangled nerves is in charge of international projects for clients such as adidas, Audi, Baedeker, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, the Ministry of Environment and Traffic Baden-Württemberg, Porsche and the broadcasting station ZDF.
Prof. Thomas Hundt, born in 1967, studied architecture at Stuttgart University and teaches at the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences. He is a partner and managing director of jangled nerves. Ingo Zirngibl, born in 1965, studied architecture at Stuttgart University as well as the Robert Gordon University Aberdeen and teaches at the Stuttgart Media University. He is a partner and managing director of jangled nerves.
jangled nerves on “Creative visions of the future”:
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” Douglas Adams – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Creative-visionary good works are made of the same ingredients as just good works, namely: a catchy story, high artistic quality and precise functionality. We regard as creative and visionary whatever brings these classical levels of perception into a harmonious but nevertheless bizarre and incomprehensible balance.
adidas mi Innovation Center (Shop, Showroom)
Client
adidas AG, Herzogenaurach
Creative Coordinators
Chris Aubrey, Jens May, Anne Nebendahl
Design
MUTABOR Design GmbH, Hamburg
Andreas Schradin, Ksawery Oroczko
Creative Direction
Heinrich Paravicini
Art Direction
Axel Domke, Christian Tönsmann
Architecture
Thomas Huth
Media
NIYU media projects/Hocke & Hofmann, Berlin
Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, Berlin
The Work:
The technisation of our everyday live, which is often accompanied by apprehension, mostly loses its dread once it has arrived exactly there, integrating itself naturally as well as helpfully. Nowadays no one is startled by the voice of their navigation device; we construct parallel worlds on the Internet and are thankful if artificial organs fulfil their duties more reliably than our own, natural ones. In its new store in Paris, adidas presents itself as a stateof-the-art company, which uses innovative technologies and scientific research results to meet customers’ individual requirements and optimise customer service. Via the 70-sqm multi-sensory installation all high-end products and services of the sports goods manufacturer can be experienced and tested. The LED Catwalk features a new technology which scans the foot, transfers the data via infrared, and configures the appropriate shoe instantly on an online interface. The design of the in-store concept combines the complex aspects of media technology, functionality and ergonomics in a futuristic look. It fascinates and arouses curiosity. And it meets the customer’s individual requirements on product performance and the adidas experience.
The Designers:
Heinrich Paravicini, born in 1971, studied communication design at the Muthesius University of Arts in Kiel from 1991 to 1997. Johannes Plass, born in 1970, also studied communication design in Kiel, from 1992 to 1997. They turned the design magazine of the Muthesius University into the avantgarde magazine MUTABOR in 1994, which received an award from the New York Type Directors Club. After spending time abroad they founded their own agency named MUTABOR in 1998. Since 2001 Heinrich Paravicini and Johannes Plass regularly hold lectures and are jury members. MUTABOR has received more than 100 international design awards.
Heinrich Paravicini and Johannes Plass on “The performance of a sports
label”:
The special challenge was to, for the first time, implement completely new technology, the shoe customising adidas mi, in a way suitable for a shop: on the one hand the in-store concept was to be perceived as innovative, while on the other hand offering long term functionality. Instead of simply wrapping the technology in a new design, we additionally developed new interfaces, which have never been on the market before. Every visit to an mi Innovation Center was to be a special experience and to fill the customers with fascination for the adidas brand.
red dot: junior prize
Type Generator
(Software)
Client
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich
Design
Remo Caminada, Zürich/Amsterdam
Ludovic Varone, Zürich
Programming
Patrick Vuarnoz, Zürich
The Work:
Widows and orphans – these are not only phrases indicating a lost parent or spouse, but also common terms referring to sloppy typography such as for example when the final line of a paragraph falls at the top of the following page of text. Every graphic designer knows the numerous rules and principles of this important discipline. And they also know what the overall concept of a manuscript has to look like in the matching font in order to optimally illustrate its purpose and content. Graphic designers also need to have this knowledge, but the “Type Generator” can make their work a lot easier. The vector-based prototype programme makes it possible to generate fonts. By changing the basic font, designers can digitally create their own forms and content-specific fonts quickly. Via certain controllers lines as well as radii can be applied to the complete font or single letters of the versal alphabet before they can then be further processed with conventional vector software. This also gives the designer the freedom to become independent of given norms and fonts and to create new solutions.
The Designers:
Remo Caminada, Ludovic Varone
Remo Caminada, born in Vrin, Switzerland in 1974, completed an apprenticeship as a building construction draughtsman. After working for two years, he trained as a primary school teacher in Chur, before beginning a degree for interaction design and visual communication at the University of Design and Art in Zurich.
In 2006 he graduated and then founded his own design studio. He has been working in Switzerland and abroad since. Ludovic Varone, born in Saviese, Switzerland, in 1977, completed an apprenticeship as a building construction draughtsman and then studied graphic design at the University of Design and Art in Zurich. Parallel to studying he trained as a bicycle mechanic. In 2005 he completed work placements with Stephan Müller, Berlin, and Norm, Zurich. He has been working for Norm since 2006.
Remo Caminada and Ludovic Varone on “Type Generator”:
Imagine there was a programme which made it possible to generate fonts. Imagine that it was no longer necessary to start with existing fonts, but instead possible to directly create your own fonts digitally. With this vector-based prototype computer programme context specific fonts can be developed into a basic font by applying specific changes. Lines as well as radii can be applied to complete fonts or single letters of the versal alphabet via specific controllers. The generated fonts can then be processed further with conventional vector software. This product is aimed at all designers who seek new context specific solutions outside of given norms.
red dot communication design yearbook 2007/2008
Edited by Peter Zec
The new international yearbook presents the winners of the red dot award: communication design 2007 in an impressive and informative way and documents the most important trends in communication design. This benchmark offers detailled portraits of the best works and their designers and allows an insight behind the scenes of the red dot design award. “The internationalisation of markets and the large number of past as well as current trends pose great challenges for designers. Today more than ever, they have to develop convincing ideas and present their content clearly and understandably, maintaining a high design standard”, the experienced design expert Jean Jacques Schaffner resumes the high demands on contemporary designers.
Works from all around the world provide a fascinating as well as sound overview of the current outstanding approaches in the areas of corporate-, packaging-, interactive- or sound design among others. The red dot communication design yearbook 2007/2008 is an inspiring compendium, not only for designers.
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