Over recent years, the Baden-Württemberg International Design Award has made a name for itself as a “focus” competition. Its unique concept of focusing on a specific issue – Focus Green in 2008, for example, or Focus Safety in 2007 – has confronted manufacturers and designs with special challenges to their current design trends and development tasks. To mark the tenth anniversary of this design award, the Design Center Stuttgart called for entries for “Focus Open”: for the first time, the competition was not related to any specific theme.

The award’s excellent reputation is reflected in the very high number of participants: 438 entries were received. Products were submitted from Europe, Asia and the United States. At the same time, this response is also an indication of the growing importance of professional design in companies. In participating in the competition, business and industry affirm that they exploit the value-added of design awards in their marketing communication – especially when the economy is going through a difficult period.

Categories

When registering their products, contestants could choose from 15 categories, which suitably reflected the diversity of today’s product worlds:

Production, assembly, logistics │Medicine, rehabilitation, geriatrics │ Bathrooms, sanitary installations, wellness │ Kitchens, household │ Tableware and kitchenware │Living │Family │Leisure, outdoor activities │ Sport │Communication, audio/video, optical equipment │Lighting │ Contract furniture │ Architecture, public design │ Energy and installations technology │ Transport, traffic.

Judging and awards

In a judging process lasting two days, which as usual took place without any pre-selection, the six judges assessed the original products according to solely classic design criteria, including design quality, functionality, innovative content, ergonomics / interface, product graphics, ecology, quality, emotional content and brand conformity.

The judges were:

• Silke Claus, Strategic Consultant, Germany

• Stefan Diez, Stefan Diez Office, Germany

• Michael Lanz, designaffairs, Germany

• Frederick Rickmann, DN Asp, Denmark

• Nicola Stattmann, Büro Nicola Stattmann, Germany

• Alex Terzariol, MM Design, Italy

Objective, respectable, non-commercial

Every year, the Focus competitions are characterized by a high level of objectivity and credibility. For example, almost all the entries for Focus Open were assessed in the original. Only a few especially bulky products and capital goods were presented as photographs. No products in which the judges were involved were allowed to be entered for the competition. Finally, the non-commercial competition’s favourable entry fees also allow smaller and younger companies to measure themselves and their products on an international level.