Red Dot Award-winning designs
Good communication design should be tempting, and draw people in. If it does, it merits a Red Dot Award. Often clever, sometimes questionable, the products are always fascinating.
Give or take?
Design for a good cause: On "Fashion Revolution Day," this vending machine by Berlin designers BBDO lured people with a two-euro T-shirt offer. If they inserted the coin, they were confronted with photos of the clothing workers' inhumane working conditions - and asked whether they would prefer to donate the two euros. Ninety percent of them said "yes."
Give - it's simply more fun!
Residents of the New Baraka slum in Dakar, Senegal, want to build a better future. Online, they posted a list of what they need. The website makes helping them easy. A click on a photo is a donation for schools, lumber and shower stalls. The design by Denkwerk GmbH convinced the jury because it is easy to use and provides an upbeat depiction of how to help people help themselves.
Free advertising
Art needs to be promoted, too. The façade of the new building of the Art Museum Basel is surrounded by a frieze of embedded LED lights, a subtle advertising platform aimed at attracting passersby into the museum. Fascinated by the "poetic expression of the sophisticated interaction of form, architecture and light," the jury awarded the Red Dot Award Grand Prix to this concept.
Freshly packaged coconuts
Some products are definitely unnecessary. These bags designed in Taiwan contain green coconuts, complete with a lid and a pull tab to get at the coconut water. They are admittedly convenient and beautifully designed - but knowing that oceans are brimming with plastic waste, wasn't the coconut itself simply the most perfect packaging already? This design nevertheless won a Red Dot Award.
Play on words at a steep price
Take another look: this is not a fragrance, it's a detergent! The jury liked the "unusual idea that brings innovation into the less than exciting detergent market." Nice to have, but only as long as you don't look at the price tag: a whopping 68 euros ($72) for a one-liter bottle. People who can afford it presumably don't do their own laundry, but their household help might enjoy the scent.
Snap, crackle, pop!
Who could resist? This poster for a photo exhibition in Hong Kong is printed on bubble wrap - the photographers focused on noise, which is inescapable in Hong Kong. You can virtually see the racket on the poster - and add to it by popping the bubbles. This interactive element was probably tested extensively by the jury and by everyone else who saw the poster.
Long waiting list
Arabic-speaking refugees can resort to the app "WhatsGerman" for their own personal German language class, a new lesson every day on their smart phone. The idea netted Munich designers Plan.Net the award Best of the Best and Agency of the Year. All award winners are on display until May 21 at the Red Dot Design Museum Essen.