Introduction
The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design announces the winners of the Museum's annual GOOD DESIGN™ Awards for 2005 won by over 300 of the world's most prestigious industrial design firms and manufacturers. The Award publicly acknowledges the world's most prestigious industrial design firms and manufacturers in over 20 countries. The Award publicly acknowledges and elevates the best and finest new design and design innovation for products and graphics designed and manufactured as of 2002 to the present.
Founded in 1950, GOOD DESIGN is the world's oldest and most celebrated awards program that bestows international recognition upon designers and manufacturers for advancing new and innovative product concepts and originality and for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered standard product and consumer design.
This year, The GOOD DESIGN Awards were judged by a jury of design professionals in New York during the month of November, 2005. Previous juries have been held in Reykjavik, Iceland, Mexico City, Mexico, Helsinki, Finland, and Milan, Italy.
The distinguished jury for 2005 included:
- Kieran Conlon, Conlon Sports, Ireland
- Renaud Couillenn, Vice President/Marketing, JC Decaux North America, New York
- Illka Kalliomma, Cultural Attache, Consulate General of Finland, New York
- Neil Kozokoff, Parkland Corporation, West Palm Beach,
Florida - Dennis Oppenheim, Artist, New York
- Benjamin A. Pardo, Sr. Vice President Design, Knoll, Inc. New York
- Doug Patton, Patton Design, Irving, California
Designers and manufacturers from all over the world won this year's competition. The GOOD DESIGN Show—the annual exhibition of the Awards—is scheduled to open early summer at The Chicago Athenaeum.
The Awards for 2005 were for the following categories: electronics, sports equipment, children's products, furniture, office products, industrial equipment, medical equipment, fabric/textiles, automotive/transportation, urban furniture/architecture, tabletop, kitchen andbath, household appliances, household products, lighting, hardware/tools, personal products, and graphics and packaging—sure to influence the environments and the ways in which we live, work, and play around the world and in the new millennium.
For the 2005 edition of GOOD DESIGN, The Chicago Athenaeum received hundreds of applications from 40 countries contributing to the international importance of the historic GOOD DESIGN Award and exhibition. Over 200 products and graphic designs were selected by a distinguished jury of recognized architects, designers, and authorities in the design world for recent designs worthy of the Museum’s GOOD DESIGN Award, attesting to the design energy, vitality, and current innovation in global design today.
The Museum’s historic GOOD DESIGN program originated in Chicago in 1950 and was organized by Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr., former curator of the Museum of Modern Art. Originally the program introduced state-of-the-art, modern products into the office and the home marketplace throughout the post-World War II decade. The program featured products and installations by some of America’s pioneers of modern design including: Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Russel Wright, and Florence Knoll, George Nelson—the most prominent design minds in America in the 1950s who blazoned a new international direction in design.
The Jury for GOOD DESIGN based their decisions on aesthetic criteria stated in the original 1950 Program—criteria which measures innovation, form, materials, construction, concept, function and utility. Product appearance and aesthetic appeal is also considered. Both the 1950s and the competitions of the new millennium encourage manufacturers and designers to improve their design standards and quality. The Museum allows and encourages winning designers and manufacturers to use the GOOD DESIGN logo through a special license, the design by the late Chicago industrial designer, Mort Goldsholl in 1950, on product packaging, marketing, and promotions—just as it was used in during the 1950s.
GOOD DESIGN is organized by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design—one of the Chicago area's most prestigious cultural institutions and the only museum of architecture and design in the United States.
