BusinessWeek's IDEA design awards are out today, and looking through them is like being in a candy store. Design is sort of the golden child of the innovation dialogue, and for good reason: it's so easy to trace the path by which innovation processes found a tangible outcome. Design innovation feeds both sides of the brain: the notion that something is problem-solving and efficient (however measured) is appealing enough, and so many of these designs measure up to these criteria, but as you will see, elegance and beauty also get their due. You must check out the slide show of the winners--there are more than 200 entries, but you should look at every one, even if for only a few seconds.
A few observations:
--Tools, tools, tools.
--Phones, phones, phones. And lighting concepts.
--Apple, Apple, Apple (and iPod after-market products)
--Green (as a color, not just a design point, especially bright green. Yellow and orange, too.)
--Socially responsible designs rate highly. There are two different concepts to fight malaria, including this one that has a sock in it because mosquitoes are attracted by bacteria that lives on human feet:
--A number of designs intended for off-the-grid applications or "optional" solar power.
--Not enough designs for the other 90 percent. The obligatory OLPC, of course, and another exception, a low-biomass stove:
--As BusinessWeek notes, student designers pull off some amazing concepts, and of course, the designs are international. There are lots of Asian winners--South Korean ones really leaped out at me. Relating to my last post, by the way, a surprising number of awards went to Brazilian designs.
And here are a few of my favorites:
The Muwi lawn mower. It presses cuttings into blocks that can be used for play structures, lawn furniture (literally), and then returned to nature:
Adiri natural nurser (i.e., baby bottle):
An amazing wheelchair for athletes:
A clever clock, that lets you map out your day:
Coming soon to my desktop, if I can arrange it:
And here is a potentially world-changing innovation if I ever saw one.
