The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an award program previously co-sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine, and in 2010 Fast Company magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). According to the IDSA, IDEA "is dedicated to fostering business and public understanding of the importance of industrial design excellence to the quality of life and economy". Every year designers and corporations submit entries into the competition in many categories. The program was established in 1980. The IDEA winners are honored at annual ceremonies (such as the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) / IDSA CONNECTING '07 World Design Congress in San Francisco, CA). The name was changed from Industrial Design Excellence Awards to International Design Excellence Awards in 2007.
The judges are chosen from different design firms and corporations throughout the world. The judging criteria are the following:
- Innovation: (design, experience, manufacturing)
- Benefit to User: (performance, comfort, safety, ease of use, usability, user interface, ergonomics, universal function and access, quality of life, affordability)
- Responsibility: Benefit to society, environment, culture and economy (improved accessibility to a greater percentage of the population, improves education, meets basic needs of low income populations, reduces disease, improves competitiveness, raises wealth, improves the quality of life, supports cultural diversity, improves energy efficiency, durability, addresses product lifecycle effects on the environment, uses low impact materials and processes throughout lifecycle, designed for repair/reuse/recyclability, addresses issues of toxicity, reduced material usage and waste reduction
- Benefit to the client (profitability, increased sales, brand reputation, employee morale)
- Visual appeal and appropriate aesthetics
- Design Research: (usability, emotional factors, unmet needs) testing rigor and reliability)
- Design Strategy Category (internal factors and methods, strategic value and implementation)
For a list of winners, links to their sites and archives of past years, please see the IDSA site for their galleries listed below.
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or excellence:
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“I would urge that the yeast of education is the idea of excellence, and the idea of excellence comprises as many forms as there are individuals, each of whom develops his own image of excellence. The school must have as one of its principal functions the nurturing of images of excellence.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (20th century)