The Finalists, all of whom are in the running to nab a Best Design trophy, reveal key trends in huaren design, including a proliferation in China of traditional products turned smart and the clear emergence of distinct yet still subtle and sophisticated huaren design traits
In the lead up to a lavish Award Ceremony on December 10, a total of 57 Finalists have been announced in the Taiwan-based Golden Pin Design Award, the world’s leading award that celebrates innovation in design for huaren (Chinese-speaking) communities.
In a Final Selection judging session held on October 5, 2015, a nine local and international jurors came together at the National Taiwan University Sports Center in Taipei, Taiwan, to review 565 Design Mark recipient products and projects in four categories–Product Design; Visual Communication Design; Spatial Design; and Packaging Design–from Greater China and the wider world.
That day, in a judging process new to the award in 2015, the Final Selection Jury decided on both the 57 Finalists and the highly coveted Best Design trophy recipients. All Finalists, which have been officially revealed today, have the opportunity to attend the Golden Pin Design Award Ceremony on December 10 this year. It is at this prestigious event that they will find out who among them will be taking home a Golden Pin Design Award 2015 Best Design trophy.
The majority of the 57 Golden Pin Design Award 2015 Finalist products and projects come from designers and design firms in Taiwan (32), followed by those in China (19), Hong Kong (5), and Singapore (1). The projects are spread across four categories: Product Design (25); Visual Communication Design (25); Spatial Design (5); and Packaging Design (2).
From China, traditional products like cups, clocks, and even skipping ropes, were re-invented to incorporate the latest advances in smart technology, noted Taiwanese product designer, founder of GIXIA Group, THAT Inventions, and Square X, and 2015 Jury Member, Jung Ya-Hsieh, on the day of the Final Selection judging in Taipei. Intelligent Cup, by China-based Shenzhen rrioo Technology Co. Ltd, is a new lifestyle product with multiple innovations on a millennia old design: the cup will regulate drinking volume, drink temperature, warm cold hands, and even remind the user to drink or tell them when their tea has finished steeping. Kids Intelligent Eye Protection Desk Lamp, designed for children’s bedrooms by LKK Design Shenzhen Co. Ltd in China, is activated with sensors rather than buttons, and can function as both a desk lamp and a motion-activated nightlight.
Some products represented the other end of the spectrum, and were decidedly and consciously low-tech in their concepts and construction, Jung continued, seeking to meet a growing demand by consumers to disconnect. MUSE 1700, designed by Taiwanese company, Leading Generation Corp., playfully transforms the traditional analogue, quartz movement wrist watch by re-configuring the hands and placing them separately on the face. Designed by Big Ass Fans in Hong Kong, Haiku 60 Caramel Bamboo Fan, is made using hyper-strong Moso bamboo, a sustainable, natural, and traditionally Chinese resource that creates a quiet fan especially suited to Asia’s typically small apartments and low-ceilinged dwellings.
Jung also commented on the abundance of clear huaren elements in the Spatial and Visual Communication Design projects, but noted that these elements are generally more subtly presented than in the past. This indicates that huaren design is maturing, he said. Adventure of Light, a residential project by HAO Design, transforms a crowded, dark 50-year-old house in the south of Taiwan into a modern, sunlit dwelling. A key feature is the traditional window frames that were up-cycled to create a new garden terrace feature wall. Renowned Taiwanese designer and Taiwan representative of the Type Directors Club (TDC), Ken-Tsai Lee, is behind the East-meets-West poster series for the annual TDC exhibition in Taiwan. Discovering that certain Chinese words––specifically ‘kick’, ‘drop’, and ‘suck’–correspond with the sounds of the English letters ’T’, ‘D’, and ‘C’, Lee created “alphabet monsters” whose actions imitate the Chinese meanings of the English letters.
Harry Williamson, a renowned Australian graphic designer, illustrator, and typographer, Australian Graphic Design Association Hall of Fame Inductee and Finalist in the International Invitational Tang Prize Medal Design Competition, was also among the nine Golden Pin Design Award 2015 Final Selection Jury Members. When discussing the importance of the Golden Pin Design Award in the global design landscape, he said: “Many of us [professional designers] are working at a level where we know we can rely on responding to our responsibility to the history of what designers have done, but then the award takes it up a level. It means you go beyond the given standard, and you’re achieving a higher quality. It gives everybody an idea, if they’re going to be self-critical, where they stand in the scheme of things.”
Taiwan’s three-decades-old Golden Pin Design Award is the world’s only design competition that seeks to recognize innovative products and projects that cater to the expectations, desires, and needs of huaren (Chinese-speaking) consumers. Following a call for entries that closed at the end of June 2015, between July and August 2015, the Golden Pin Design Award wrapped up both its online Preliminary Selection and a series of Secondary Selection legs in China and Taiwan. The Golden Pin Design Award 2015 Design Mark winners, all of whom are eligible to be named Best Design award winners, were announced on September 24. Final Selection judging, in which both Finalist and Best Design winners were selected, took place in Taipei on October 5, 2015. Best Design winners–along with winners of the Golden Pin Design Award’s sister award, the Golden Pin Concept Design Award, and other associated awards–will be announced in a lavish award ceremony held in Taipei on December 10.
About the Golden Pin Design Award
The Golden Pin Design Award is an annual award, administered by the Taiwan Design Center in Taipei, Taiwan, that seeks to recognize innovative products and projects that cater to the expectations, desires, and needs of huaren (Chinese-speaking) consumers. The award welcomes entries from individuals and corporations anywhere in the world that are selling, manufacturing, or designing products for or within huaren communities. The award, now in its 34th year, accepts product design, visual communication, packaging, and spatial design works. Entered products and projects are assessed in three stages by an expert international jury. Second stage winners receive a Golden Pin Design Mark. Of these Design Mark recipients, just a select few will receive a Best Design trophy.
For the latest news on the Golden Pin Design Award, visit:
Official Website: http://www.goldenpin.org.tw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoldenPinDesign
Weibo: http://www.weibo.com/p/1006065181797743/home?from=page_100606&mod=TAB#place
For more insights into huaren design, visit Perspectives: http://designperspectives.org.
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