Anne Zhang

zhangy49@gmail.com

SEVENTEEN products designed by Shenzhen companies will be honored as winners of 2014 Red Dot awards at a July 7 ceremony in Essen, Germany, the Shenzhen Industrial Design Professional Association (SIDA) announced this week.

A curved desk lamp designed by Shenzhen-based Re Tang Electronics Co. won Red Dot’s highest honor, the Best of the Best award.

“The award is a milestone for our company. It encourages us to design better work in the future,” Chu Minghua, Re Tang’s CEO and the designer of the award-winning lamp, told Shenzhen Daily.

Chu said he hopes winning such an esteemed international award will help his company further promote their philosophy of “living with an attitude.”

The Red Dot Award committee received 4,815 entries from 53 countries this year. More than 1,000 pieces won awards and 72 won Best of the Best honors. Eighty pieces by Chinese designers were awarded, including 17 from Shenzhen companies including Huawei Technologies Co., Shenzhen Fiyta Holdings, Shenzhen GGMM Industrial Co., Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Buydeem Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Shenzhen Baojia Battery Technology Co. and Shenzhen Designdo Industrial Design Co.

SIDA secretary-general Feng Changhong said it’s inspiring to see an increasing number of Shenzhen companies gaining international reputations in the design industry.

“Our association has cooperated with the Asian headquarters of the Red Dot Award for several years. We are striving to promote local designers and design works to the international market,” Feng said.

The jury for this year’s Red Dot awards included 40 top design professionals from 25 countries, including Germany, Italy, the United States, Mexico, Finland, Israel and Slovenia. Three judges were from the Chinese mainland and two were from Taiwan.

Red Dot Award initiator and CEO Peter Zec said competition for the awards is constantly gaining significance at an international level.

“The Red Dot Award gives design professionals from all over the world a chance to measure themselves against each other,” Zec said. “Year after year, this results in a higher level of design and also motivates the participants to enter their best products in the competition.”

Prize-winning works will be exhibited in the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen from July 8 to Aug. 3, following the July 7 award ceremony.

The Red Dot Design Award is widely regarded as one of the top three international design prizes. The other two are the iF Award, also based in Germany, and the IDEA awards, based in the United States.