Japanese Good Design Awards 2008

The Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization, the organization involved in the comprehensive promotion of design, recently announced the results of the 2008 Good Design Awards. Applications for this year opened on May 8, and 3,023 entries were received. As a result of initial and second screenings, 1,067 items received Good Design Awards. These included the Good Design Award Best 15 and other special awards.

Good Design Awards Selected from the Perspective of “The Consumer of the Near Future”
Screening of the 2008 Good Design Awards was carried out with an emphasis on the perspective of people who use the products and receive the services concerned. The winners, which are selected from a wide range of design fields, incorporate the viewpoint of “images of life in the near future and designs that lead the way to next generation lifestyles.”

The Sustainable Design Award and Life-Scape Design Award Selected as New Special Award Categories
The special awards awarded include the Good Design Award Best 15, which include the candidates for the Good Design Grand Award, together with the Good Design Sustainable Design Award and Good Design Life-Scape Design Award, which were newly instituted this year.

The Long Life Design Award Selected with Input from Consumers
The Good Design Long Life Design Award recognizes designs that have received longstanding support and regular use by their consumers. The screening considered subject entries nominated by ordinary consumers.

These are the winners of the Good Design Award Best 15:

Good Design Grand Award 2008

Outline:

iQ is a “Micro-Premium” car, seriously developed for environmental and energy issues. A newly designed platform enables an ultra-efficient package that seats four in a vehicle 2,985mm long. The iQ’s unique styling creates a sense of sophistication and presence that belies the car’s size. A 1.0-liter engine delivers outstanding cruising and environmental performance, offers fuel efficiency at the highest levels for its displacement. It also boasts fuel efficiency of 23.0km/l in the 10-15 Japanese test cycle and 21.0km/l in the JC08 test cycle. The iQ is highly responsive at low and medium speeds, provides stable cruising performance at high speeds, and has a minimum turning radius of 3.9 meters - one of the shortest in the industry. In addition, a S-VSC (Steering-assisted Vehicle Stability Control) system and a total of nine airbags are standard on all models to provide outstanding safety performance.

Designer’s Comment:

Compact and high-performance, based on advanced technology that Japanese excel at, we have succeeded in creating the car that addresses the environmental issues. We have ushered in a new era of restrained luxury.We aim to establish a new genre of “Micro-Premium” car, and hope to become a catalyst of compact car design, breaking away from the current paradigm. We have created an original platform based on an innovative package, and finished the iQ into a bold and iconic design.

Good Design Gold Award 2008 - Human body and life:

Good Design Gold Award 2008 - Industry and society:

Good Design Gold Award 2008 - Mobility and networks:

Images: Good Design Award