On Friday October 24th the winners of the Saxony Design Award 2014 - the Sächsischer Staatspreis für Design 2014 - were announced at a, no doubt, suitably grand ceremony in Leipzig.
Ran under the motto "Mehr Wert durch Design" - "More value through design" - the 2014 edition of the biennial contest looked for projects which help illustrate the potential of design in our modern post-industrial industrial economy. And which we suspect, although it wasn't explicitly stated, was intended to highlight the potential offered by Saxony's many talented designers to the regions many small and medium sized businesses.
In early September the awards Jury nominated 35 projects from the 261 submitted entries from which 14 received an award.
In the Product Design category first prize, and the associated €10,000, was awarded to Dresden based neongrau for their Pendix 1.0 system for Zwickau based Herms Drives GmbH. In effect Pendix 1.0 allows any normal bicycle to be transformed into an e-bike without the need of any complex, and costly, reconstruction and rebuilding. It, crudely put, clips on and thus allows you to continue enjoying the bike you have.
Second place went to Frankenberg based designer Marcel Kabisch for his self-produced and distributed stool-cum-sidetable Griffbereit - "Ready to hand" - a solid ash and beech plywood object which plays with the current fascination of the furniture industry for transportable metal tables, in a delightfully straightforward and easily accessible form.
Completing the podium, and also the spectrum of contemporary product design, third prize went to FABian from Berlin based agency formfreun.de for Cell. Copedia GmbH. We're not even going to pretend to know exactly what FABian is or can; all we know is that it is a full automatic device for selecting proteins and/or cells from a biological suspension.
In addition to the Product Design category the Saxony Design Award 2014 also recognised the following projects in the following categories:
Communication Design: 1. Umwelt- und Nachbarschaftshaus Kelsterbach Intolight Hersteller: Gemeinnützige Umwelthaus GmbH
2. Book design „Schönheit & Last – Bildnisse vom Alter“ by Oberberg . Seyde for Cajewitz-Stiftung
3. Book design »Mascha und der Bär« by Renate Wacker for kunstanstifter verlag e.Kfr.
3. Selections from the Spector Books programme 2012-2014 by Spector Books / Spectormag GbR, Jan Wenzel for Spector Books / Spectormag GbR.
Young Talents: 1. Combine harvester with a novel folding cutting concept by Christoph Philipp Schreiber
2. My way. Materiel study – Pine needles / Textildesign an der Burg Giebichenstein: I did it my way! by Katharina Jebsen
3. Schuko-plug-twisted by Christoph Uckermark
Special recognition and the Leipzig Messe Prize. EVOLVE – Lightweight touring tent by Ingo Schuppler and Jonas Schwarz
Special Award "Apps – New Mobile Media":
Special Recognition: Abflug – Take-Off! The fun-packed journey for little passengers. by APPSfactory GmbH Dr. Alexander Trommen for Lufthansa AG
Special Recognition: ifdesign.awards by APPSfactory GmbH Dr. Alexander Trommen for IF International Forum Design GmbH
Special Recognition: Solarwatt Energy Portal by neongrau. (design) and Kiwigrid GmbH (programming) for Solarwatt GmbH
Congratulations to all!
More details on the Saxony Design Award 2014 can be found at www.design-in-sachsen.de, and the stool-cum-sidetable Griffbereit by Marcel Kabisch for FEINSERIE is available through (smow) Chemnitz.
