Today sees the opening of the 6th annual Designs Of The Year exhibition and awards at London's Design Museum.
Following in the footsteps of previous winners such as Barber Oserby's Olympic Torch and Shepard Fairie's Obama painting, 90 nominees have been chosen by a board of experts across seven different categories: architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and transport. In amongst the vast list are little gems such as the Shard, the Olympic Cauldron and a non-stick ketchup bottle.
This year's curator, Pete Collard has taken the outlandish decision not to arrange the nominees strictly by category to enable people to recognise good design in a broader sense.
This year's hottest tips included the Olympic Cauldron by Heatherwick Studio, The Shard by Renzo Piano, A Room for London by David Kohn Architectrs more commonly known as the boat-shaped hotel room, Yayoi Kusama's collection for Louis Vuitton and the award-winning Exhibition Road by Dixon Jones which intergrates vehicles and pedestrians with no boundaries between pavement and road. The Microsoft Windows 8 phone is the only phone nominee and the latest Gov.uk site also features in the Digital category.
Shining stars of the awards include architect Louis Kahn has won a nomination 40 years after his death for New York’s Four Freedoms Park which was finally completed at the end of 2012. Zaha Hadid earns two nominations across two different disciplines this year for the Galaxy Soho building in Beijing and the Liquid Glacial Table, which resembles running water. . The successful Barbican installation Rain Room by Random International, which produced queues of over three hours has received a nomination, and the venue’s Bauhaus exhibition is recognised for its graphics by APFEL.
The only downside to this year's show is that it has been moved to a smaller exhibition space within the Design Museum meaning that photos and prototypes are more the order of the day rather than large scale wow-factor exhibits.
Designs Of The Year is on show now until the 7th of July and the winner will be announced on the 17th of April.
Designs of the Year 2013: Cardon Webb – Ralph Ellison Collection (Photographer Luke Hayes)
Designs of the Year 2013: Nike – Flyknit Trainers (Photographer Luke Hayes)
Designs of the Year 2013: Yayoi Kusama – Louis Vuitton Collection (Photographer Luke Hayes)
A full list of the nominations is as follows...
ARCHITECTURE
A Room For London, (Southbank Centre), UK
Designed by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with artist Fiona Banner
Astley Castle, Warwickshire, UK
Designed by Witherford Watson Mann
Book Mountain, Spijkenisse, Holland
Designed by MVRDV
Clapham Library, London, UK
Designed by Studio Egret West
Four Freedoms Park, New York, USA
Designed by Louis Kahn
Galaxy Soho, Bejing
Designed by Zaha Hadid
Home For All, (Venice 2012 Architecture Biennale)
Designed by Akihisa Hirata, Sou Fujimoto, Kumiko, Naoya Hatakeyama, Inui and Toyo Ito
Ikea Disobedients, (Performed at MoMA PS1), New York
Designed by Andrés Jaque Arquitectos
Kukje Art Centre, Seoul
Designed by SO - IL
La Tour Bois-Le-Prêtre, Paris
Designed by Druot, Lacaton and Vassal
Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast
Designed by Hackett Hall McKnight
MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Cleveland, USA
Designed by Farshid Moussavi Architecture
Museum of Innocence, Istanbul
Designed by Orhan Pamuk with Ihsan Bilgin, Cem Yucel and Gregor Sunder Plassmann
Thalia Theatre, Lisbon
Designed by Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos & Barbas Lopes Arquitectos
The Shard, London, UK
Designed by Renzo Piano
T-Site, Tokyo
Designed by Klein Dytham
Superkilen, Nørrebro, Denmark
Designed by BIG, TOPOTEK1 and Superflex
DIGITAL
Candles In The Wind
Designed by Moritz Waldemeyer for Ingo Maurer
City Tracking Pt 2
Designed by Stamen
Chirp
Designed by Patrick Bergel
Dashilar App
Designed by Nippon Design Centre Inc.
Digital Postcard and Player
Designed by Uniform
English Hedgerow Plate
Designed by Jason Jameson, James Hall and Rhys Griffin of Unanico Group, with Andrew Tanner Design and Royal Winton
Free Universal Construction Kit
Designed by Free Art and Technology Lab and Sy-Lab
Gov.UK Website
Designed by Government Digital Service
Light Field Camera
Designed by Lytro
Superstitious Fund Project
Designed by Shing Tat Chung
Rain Room, (The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery)
Designed by rAndom International
Raspberry Pi Computer
Designed by Raspberry Pi Foundation
Wind Map
Designed by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Bertini Viegas
Windows Phone 8
Designed by Microsoft
Zombies, Run! App
Designed by Six to Start and Naomi Alderman
FASHION
A/W12 Collection
Designed by Craig Green
A/W12 Womenswear
Designed by Giles Deacon
Anna Karenina Costumes
Designed by Jacqueline Durran
Commes De Garçons RTW A/W12
Designed by Rei Kawakubo
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel
Directed by Lisa Immordino
I Want Muscle
Directed by Elisha Smith-Leverock
Louis Vuitton Collection
Designed by Yayoi Kusama
Prada S/S12 RTW Collection
Designed by Miuccia Prada
Proenza Schouler A/W12 Collection
Designed by Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough
FURNITURE
100 Chairs
Designed by Marni
A-Collection
Designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Hay
Corniches
Designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra
Engineering Temporality
Designed by Studio Markunpoika
Future Primitives
Designed by Muller Van Severen
Gravity Stool
Designed by Jolan Van Der Wiel
Liquid Glacial Table
Designed by Zaha Hadid
Medici Chair
Designed by Konstantin Grcic for Mattiazzi
Re-Imagined Chairs
Designed by Studiomama (Nina Tolstrup and Jack Mama)
Tié Paper Chair
Designed by Pinwu
The Sea Chair
Designed by Studio Swine & Kieren Jones
Well Proven Chair
Designed by James Shaw and Marjan van Aubel
GRAPHICS
Kapow!
Written by Adam Thirlwell and designed by Studio Frith
Austria Solar Annual Report
Designed by Serviceplan
Australian Cigarette Packaging
Commissioned by Australian Government Department for Health and Ageing
Bauhaus: Art As Life Exhibition (Barbican Art Gallery)
Designed by A Practice For Everyday Life
Dekho: Conversations on Design in India
Designed by CoDesign
Doc Lisboa '12
Designed by Pedro Nora
Made in Los Angeles: Work by Colby Poster Printing Co.
Designed by Anthony Burrill
Occupied Times Of London
Designed by Tzortzis Rallis and Lazaros Kakoulidis
Organic
Designed by Kapitza
Ralph Ellison Collection
Designed by Cardon Webb
Rijksmuseum Identity
Designed by Irma Boom
Strelka Institute Identity
Designed by OK-RM
The Gentlewoman #6
Designed by Veronica Ditting & Jop van Bennekom
Venice Architecture Biennale Identity
Designed by John Morgan
Zumtobel Annual Report
Designed by Brighten the Corners and Anish Kapoor
PRODUCT
Bang & Olufsen 'Beolit 12'
Designed by Cecilie Manz
Child Vision Glasses
Designed by The Centre for Vision in the Developing World and Goodwin Hartshorn
Colalife
Designed by Simon Berry
Colour Porcelain
Designed by Scholten & Baijings/1616 Arita Japan
E- Source
Designed by Hal Watts
Faceture Vases
Designed by Phil Cuttance
Frederic Malle Travel Sprays
Designed by Pierre Hardy
Flyknit Trainers
Designed by Nike
Kiosk 2.0
Designed by Unfold Studio
Liquiglide Ketchup Bottle
Designed by Dave Smith/Varanasi Research Group MIT
Little Printer
Designed by Berg
Little Sun
Designed by Olafur Eliasson
3D Printed Exoskeleton 'Magic Arms'
Designed by Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware
Oigen Kitchenware
Designed by Jasper Morrison/Japan Creative
Olympic Cauldron
Designed by Heatherwick Studio
Papa Foxtrot Toys
Designed by PostlerFerguson
Plug Lamp
Designed by Form Us With Love
Replicator 2
Designed by MakerBot
Switch Collection
Designed by Inga Sempe for Legrand
Surface Tension Lamp
Designed by Front
Tekio
Designed by Anthony Dickens
W127 Lamp
Designed by Dirk Winkel for Wästberg
TRANSPORT
Air Access Seat
Designed by Priestmangoode
Donky Bicycle
Designed by Ben Wilson
Exhibition Road
Designed by Dixon Jones / The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
i3 Concept Car
Designed by BMW
Mando Footloose Chainless Bicycle
Designed by Mark Sanders
Morph Folding Wheel
Designed by Vitamins for Maddak Inc.
N-ONE
Designed by Honda
Olympics Wayfinding
Designed by TfL /JEDCO / LOCOG
Touch & Travel
Designed by DB Mobility Logistics AG
More information can be found here http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2013/designs-of-the-year-2013
