Dulles, VA, July 3, 2006-- The 2006 Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) has named Tricycle among the world's leading designers and innovative problem-solvers by presenting the sustainable design company with a Gold IDEA award, a celebration of the best product designs of the year.
A jury of 18 leading thinkers in the design world granted the awards based on five areas of industrial design excellence: design innovation, benefit to the user, benefit to the client/business, ecological responsibility, and appropriate aesthetics and appeal. Tricycle received one of only 27 Golds out of a total of 106 awards, selected from more than 1,400 international entries. The competition is co-sponsored by the IDSA and Business Week magazine. The winners are featured in the July issue of Business Week as well as on the magazine web site.
"With the rapid changes occurring in technology, commerce and society, it takes real leadership to define meaningful new products and services and deliver them to the market," said Jury Chair Chris Conley, IDSA, co-founder and director of Chicago-based consulting firm Gravity Tank. "Consumers expect new products and services to not only serve their needs, but to delight them. The 2006 IDEA winners represent the best of global product design and the best people and firms working to realize design's potential in everyday life."
Tricycle's SIM from Tricycle® digital modeling of interiors products won, according to juror JohnPaul Kusz, IDSA, co-director, Center for Sustainable Enterprise, because it "showcases the potential of design to significantly reduce environmental burdens, while reducing both costs and time to market for carpet sampling. This effort has shown how the inclusion of ecological concerns in the creative process can generate a competitive advantage."
SIM is used by interiors product manufacturers to reduce oil use and landfill waste in product development and sampling, as well as to speed products to market and offer design and ecodesign advantages to architects and interior designers.
"We need more initiatives like this design utilized to develop a service that reduces, instead of induces, consumption. Brilliant," said juror Richard Eisermann, founder, Prospect.
"This year's winners shared a few things in common," remarked juror Robyn Waters, founder and president, RW Trend LLC, and author of the upcoming book The Hummer and the Mini: Navigating the Contradictions of the New Trend Landscape. "The best of the best found a way to cut through the clutter and simplify product and message. The winning designers were able to tune into the hearts and the minds of the customer, not just into market trends, and deliver smart products that reframed entire categories. Many leveraged ethnographic research to get there, which I believe is an incredibly important part of design strategy."
Juror Alistair Hamilton, IDSA, vice president, corporate innovation and design, Symbol Technologies, commented, "It is difficult to pinpoint a certain trend or quality to the 2006 IDEA winners. As a collection they represent the diversity of successful design from the sculptural to the practical, and the systemic to the simple. The breadth and high level of sophistication of the entries was remarkable, and I think this jury demanded a level of surprise for a design to emerge as a winner. So it seems that it is not enough to make a great next generation anymore; design solutions that contained something unexpected drew the most interest, conversation and recognition."
"By the nature of our profession and today's market, we as designers create ephemera," said Tricycle Chief Brand Officer Michael Hendrix. "With thought, we can reduce the environmental and economic footprint of design and manufacturing while still communicating not only fashion and accuracy, but beauty and truth."
