Two outstanding European designs have been honored today at the DesignEuropa Awards in Warsaw.
The Small and Emerging Companies Award has been won by the Air.Go 2.0 automatic bag drop system, owned by Danish firm Marcus Pedersen ApS, and designed by Sara Clement. The Industry Award was won by the ARTIS pheno robotic C-arm angiography system from Siemens Healthcare GmbH, designed by Nadja Roth and Tobias Reese.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Hartmut Esslinger, a German designer with global reach and impact. He is known for his collaboration with Steve Jobs and Apple which led to the creation of the “Snow White” design language for Apple in the 1980s. During the course of his professional life, he has designed for some of the world’s largest companies, including Sony, Microsoft, Lufthansa and Disney.
The DesignEuropa Awards are organized by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), a decentralized agency of the EU, to celebrate excellence in design and design management among Registered Community Design (RCD) holders. The RCD is a unitary intellectual property right administered by EUIPO and valid throughout the EU-28.
The Chairwoman of the DesignEuropa Awards jury, Luisa Bocchietto, said: “We had four excellent finalists in each of our two categories, and every single one of those finalists stands out in terms of quality, excellence and market impact. Choosing two winning designs from such a high-performing field was a very difficult – but rewarding – task for our jury.”
The Executive Director of the EUIPO, Christian Archambeau said: “The breadth and depth of European design talent is truly represented here at the DesignEuropa Awards. We have two excellent winners, who show the power of design as a key business asset. Our Lifetime Achievement winner has shown how design can be a game changer at a global level. All this design excellence shows European creativity and innovation at its best.”
The winning design in the Small and Emerging Companies category is:
Air.Go.2.0 automatic bag drop solution for airports (RCD owner: Marcus P Holding, manufacturer: Marcus Pedersen ApS; designer: Sara Clement)
Air.Go.2.0 is a fully automatic self-service bag drop solution, which helps airports remove queues in the check-in area. The jury highlighted the design of the product as “catering to a user need and solving a problem,” and underlined how the design merged with its environment, for the benefit of the end user.
The winning design in the Industry category is:
ARTIS pheno robotic C-arm angiography system (RCD owner and manufacturer: Siemens Healthcare GmbH; designer: Nadja Roth (in-house design) and Tobias Reese (at-design GbR)
The jury appreciated the consistency of design language in this product, as well as the overall composition, both of which are oriented around patient needs. The ARTIS pheno’s design allows medical staff to perform procedures with optimal access to the patient, and helps to combat infection and increase patient safety.
The Lifetime Achievement Award winner: Hartmut Esslinger
The DesignEuropa Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Hartmut Esslinger, a German industrial designer with a global career spanning five decades.
Perhaps best known for his creation of the “Snow White” design language for Apple in the 1980s, Mr Esslinger’s career began in Germany, where he designed products for the electronics firms Wega and Sony, among other firms. The design studio he founded in 1969, frog, is now a global firm with a presence in 11 countries around the world.
Apart from Apple, he has worked with a huge array of international clients, including Disney, Siemens, Lufthansa and Louis Vuitton. After retiring from frog in 2006, he has dedicated his time to teaching, currently in Shanghai, China, and to writing.
Mr Esslinger’s motto, “form follows emotion,” has guided and informed his work over the years. He is now one of the best-known and most influential industrial designers in the world.
