Speirs + Major, Occhio & Tobias Grau among those honoured at iF Design Award Ceremony
(Germany) – The 65th edition of the iF Design Awards was held at the BMW Welt in Munich on 15 March 2019.
The international design world gathered on 15 March to celebrate the best in design from the past 12 months at the iF Design Awards 2019.
Held once again at the BMW Welt in Munich, Germany, the 65th edition of the awards attracted more than 2,000 guests from 42 countries to honour this year’s 66 Gold Award winners.
An independent jury of 67 experts from 20 countries met in Hamburg in January of this year to choose the winners of this year’s awards. These spanned across seven categories, from Product Design, Communication Design, Packaging Design and Service Design, to Architecture, Interior Architecture and Professional Concept.
Among the Lighting-related Gold Award winners, Occhio and Tobias Grau won Gold Awards for the Mito Largo floor lamp and Salt & Pepper lamp respectively, while the Macallan Distillery, featuring lighting design from Speirs + Major, won a Gold Award in the Interior Architecture category.
A total of 6,375 entries from 50 countries were registered for the completion across the seven disciplines. Jury Chairman Fritz Frenkler said of the calibre of entries: “We, the jury, were genuinely impressed to see how high the design quality of many products has become. An acceptable design is now seen as standard, as is the quality of the workmanship.
“It is, however, striking that there is a great desire to follow design benchmarks rather than daring to try anything really new. It takes a great deal of courage to be truly innovative and shareholders who are prepared to take a risk. At the same time, it is not about striving for diversity at any cost – good, clear and intuitive design is what the user should be offered – in any design discipline.”
iF Design Award winners for lighting also included, among others, LED Linear, Osram, Erco, Arkoslight, Linea Light Group, Zumtobel, Ribag, XAL and L&L Luce&Light.
During the awards ceremony, iF CEO Ralph Weigmann commemorated seven companies for their continual and successful participation in the iF Design Awards, from its inception in 1954 to the present day. These companies were Braun, Jungheinrich, Rosenthal, MAN Truck & Bus, WMF Group, Sartorius and Siemens.
