Design awards and innovations

Where

Chicago, United States

When

Exhibitions from 1950; yearly awards since the 1990s

Who

Started by MoMA and the Merchandise Mart; run today by the Chicago Athenaeum

In 1950 the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Merchandise Mart, a giant trade building in Chicago, began a series of Good Design exhibitions led by the curator Edgar Kaufmann Jr. Each show picked the best new furniture, fabrics, lamps and household goods on sale, and Charles and Ray Eames designed the displays for the first one. Shops could put a round Good Design tag on the chosen products. Strictly, those 1950s shows chose products rather than handing out prizes. Today the Chicago Athenaeum, a museum of architecture and design, runs yearly Good Design Awards and counts them from 1950, so they are often called the oldest design awards in the world.

Where

Milan, Italy

When

1954

Who

Started by the Milan department store La Rinascente; now run by ADI

Key works

The photo shows the Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter by Marcello Nizzoli, a 1954 winner, at MoMA

The name means "golden compass", after the drawing compass that designers use, and the trophy is shaped like one. La Rinascente started the award in 1954, from an idea by the architect and designer Gio Ponti and Alberto Rosselli, to reward the best of Italy's new industrial design. The Italian industrial design association, ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), later took it over. Its collection of winners is shown at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, on a square renamed Piazza Compasso d'Oro. Among the very first winners, in 1954, was Marcello Nizzoli's light, portable Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter.

Where

Essen, Germany

When

First jury show 1955; called Red Dot since the 1990s

Who

Red Dot, led since 1991 by Peter Zec

Key works

The photo shows the Red Dot Design Museum in the old boiler house of the Zollverein coal mine

Red Dot grew out of a design association in Essen that held its first jury-picked show of well-designed industrial products in 1955. In the 1990s, under its director Peter Zec, the prize took the name Red Dot, after the red dot that art galleries stick beside a painting that has been sold. Today there are three Red Dot competitions: Product Design, Brands and Communication Design, and Design Concept, for ideas that are not yet made. Companies pay a fee to enter, and winners may use the red dot label. Winning products are shown at the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen, in a coal mine boiler house redesigned by Norman Foster that opened in 1997. The Zollverein mine is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a second Red Dot museum opened in Singapore in 2005.

Where

Hanover, Germany

When

Show from 1953; awards every year since 1954

The iF began in 1953 as a special show of well-designed industrial goods at the Hanover Fair, one of the world's largest trade fairs, and it has given design awards every year since 1954. The letters stand for Industrie Forum, now International Forum Design. Today the iF Design Award covers products, packaging, communication, interior architecture, service design and more, and draws thousands of entries from dozens of countries each year.

Where

Japan

When

1957

Who

Set up by Japan's trade ministry (MITI); run today by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion

Key works

The photo shows Iwamizawa Station, Hokkaido, winner of the 2009 Good Design Grand Award

In 1957 Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry set up a Good Design selection system to raise the quality of Japanese products. Things that pass its jury carry the G Mark, a red circle with a white diamond cut into the shape of a G, designed by the graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura. The government system was turned into a private award in the late 1990s, and the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP) runs it today. It now covers buildings, software and services as well as products, and the best entry of the year wins the Good Design Grand Award. In 2009 that went to the new Iwamizawa Station in Hokkaido, designed by Hiroshi Nishimura, with walls of imprinted bricks and a glass front framed with old railway rails.

Where

London, United Kingdom

When

D&AD founded 1962

D&AD was set up in London in 1962 by designers and art directors to celebrate great advertising and design and to train young creatives. Its awards are pencils. In rising order they are the Wood, Graphite and Yellow Pencils, and the Black Pencil, for truly ground-breaking work, which in some years nobody receives. The White Pencil, added in 2011, goes to creative work that does real good in the world.

Where

Cannes, France

When

First held in Venice in 1954; settled in Cannes in 1984

Key works

The photo shows the Palais des Festivals, where the festival is held

Cinema advertising companies wanted a festival for adverts like the Cannes Film Festival for films, so in September 1954 they held the International Advertising Film Festival in Venice. Its trophy, a lion, comes from the winged lion of St Mark that stands in Venice's Piazza San Marco. The festival moved between cities before settling in Cannes in 1984. Each June it fills the Palais des Festivals, the same building as the film festival, and gives Grand Prix, gold, silver and bronze Lions for advertising, branding, digital and other creative work. It is often called the Oscars of advertising.

Where

Given worldwide by the Hyatt Foundation, based in Chicago

When

Every year since 1979

Who

Founded by Jay and Cindy Pritzker

Key works

The photo shows the 2014 Serpentine Pavilion in London by Smiljan Radić, the 2026 winner

Jay and Cindy Pritzker, the family behind the Hyatt hotels, founded the prize in 1979 to honour a living architect for a lifetime of built work. The winner, called the laureate, receives US$100,000 and a bronze medallion, and the prize is often called the Nobel Prize of architecture. In 2018 Balkrishna Doshi became the first Indian laureate, and as of October 2026 he is still the only one. The 2025 prize went to Liu Jiakun of China. The 2026 prize, announced in March 2026, went to Smiljan Radić of Chile, the second Chilean winner after Alejandro Aravena in 2016. His pavilion for London's Serpentine Gallery (2014) was a thin fibreglass shell resting on huge stones.

Where

New Delhi, presented by the President of India

When

National Awards since 1965; Shilp Guru since 2002

Who

Ministry of Textiles, through the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts)

India's government honours master craftspeople with two main awards. The National Handicrafts Awards, given since 1965, reward outstanding pieces of craft work. The Shilp Guru ("craft teacher") award, started in 2002 to mark fifty years of the revival of Indian handicrafts, is the highest honour in the sector. It goes to masters who are not only highly skilled but have also passed their craft on to the next generation, and it brings ₹2 lakh, a gold coin, a shawl and a tamrapatra (an inscribed copper plate). As of October 2026, the latest awards were presented by President Droupadi Murmu on 9 December 2025, during National Handicrafts Week, for the years 2023 and 2024.

Where

Switzerland

When

Idea in the 1940s; patented in 1955

Who

George de Mestral, Swiss engineer

Made with

One strip of tiny nylon hooks and one strip of soft loops

After a walk in the Alps with his dog, de Mestral found burrs, the prickly seed heads of plants such as burdock, stuck to his clothes and the dog's fur. Under a microscope he saw that each burr was covered in hundreds of tiny hooks that caught on any loop of thread or hair. He spent years copying this in nylon: one strip covered in tiny hooks and one covered in loops, which grip when pressed together and peel apart. He patented it in 1955 and named it Velcro, from the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (hook). It was later used on astronauts' space suits, and now holds shoes, bags and much more together.

Where

Japan, run by JR West

When

In passenger service from 1997

Who

Eiji Nakatsu, JR West engineer and birdwatcher

When a fast train shoots into a tunnel, it pushes a wall of air ahead of it, which bursts out of the far end with a loud bang, called a tunnel boom, that disturbed people living nearby. Eiji Nakatsu, an engineer and keen birdwatcher, thought of the kingfisher, a bird that dives from air into water with hardly a splash. The 500 Series was given a long, rounded nose shaped like a kingfisher's beak. It was quieter, and according to Nakatsu it used about 15 percent less electricity while running about 10 percent faster than before. It was the first Japanese train to run at 300 km/h in regular service.

Where

Harare, Zimbabwe

When

Opened 1996

Who

Mick Pearce, architect, with the engineers Arup

Made with

Heavy concrete and brick, with rows of chimneys on the roof

The owners wanted a big office and shopping block that would not need expensive air conditioning. Pearce looked at termite mounds, which stay at a steady temperature inside while the air outside swings from hot days to cold nights. His building stores heat in its thick concrete and brick walls. At night, fans pull cool air through it; by day, warm air rises and escapes through the chimneys on the roof. Early reports said it used less than a tenth of the energy of a normal building of its size. Later research found that real termite mounds breathe in a more complicated way than Pearce had assumed, but his building still shows how nature can help cool a building.

Where

Jaipur, Rajasthan

When

1968

Who

Dr P.K. Sethi, orthopaedic surgeon, and Ram Chandra Sharma, craftsman

Made with

Rubber and a wooden block, coated in vulcanised (heat-hardened) rubber

At the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) hospital and medical college in Jaipur, Dr Sethi and the craftsman Ram Chandra Sharma, known as "Masterji", made a cheap artificial foot for people who had lost a leg below the knee. Imported artificial feet were costly and did not let a person squat, sit cross-legged, walk barefoot or work in wet fields, all part of daily life in rural India. The Jaipur Foot can do all of these and is waterproof. It was never patented, so anyone could make it. The charity Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), set up in Jaipur in 1975 by D.R. Mehta, fits it free of charge.

Where

Morbi area, Gujarat

When

Work began in 2002

Who

Mansukhbhai Prajapati, potter

Made with

Terracotta clay

Mansukhbhai Prajapati, from a family of potters, lost most of his stock in the Gujarat earthquake of January 2001. A newspaper photo of one of his broken clay water filters carried the caption "the broken fridge of the poor", and it gave him an idea: a real fridge, made of clay, that needs no electricity. He began work in 2002, helped by grassroots innovation networks. Water poured into a tank at the top soaks into the porous clay walls and evaporates from the outside, which cools the food chamber below, just as a matka (clay water pot) keeps water cool. It works best in hot, dry weather. The National Innovation Foundation honoured his range of clay kitchen products at its National Grassroots Innovation Awards in 2009.