Global materials consultancy Material ConneXion announced last week the launch of its first annual MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year, naming UK-based company Concrete Canvas’ Concrete Cloth as the inaugural winner.

The winners of the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition—a celebration of year’s most innovative and exciting product and product concept designs and one of the world’s most prestigious and recognizable design competitions—exhibit a focus on sustainability, functionality and, in some cases, breathtaking aesthetics. Additionally, a recent trend toward…

The international contest for the James Dyson Award, celebrating, encouraging and inspiring the next generation of design engineers, invites the public to participate in the People’s Vote stage. Until Monday, July 20, the website is opened up to a public vote in…

After a brisk three months of hard work, the winners of the Toyota iQ competition were announced in a celebration of young designers’ work at the Royal College of Art. Joint winners were Yusuf Muhammad, with his keyboard mounted mini screen to help slow typers, and Dominic Hargreaves, who is…

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…

A new exhibition opens this week in San Francisco that profiles the work of today’s finest design talent. The 2008 Spark Design Awards put more than 360 entries under the microscope last month, with the best being selected by a jury of prestigious names in global design. The winners are…

Amsterdam-based experimental design collaborative Platform 21, known for their infamous hacks of IKEA furniture, ran a Hack-your-IKEA competition this summer, and they have received nearly a hundred national and international entries to the contest. All from enthusiastic hackers that each in their own way changed an…

The design competition One Good Chair recently announced two proposals as the final winning designs: Jittasak Narknisorn‘s “Posi+ive Lounge Chair” and Jessica Konawicz‘s “Pandanus Lounge Chair”. The jury also honored designs by Robert Corser, Catherine Pena and Moon Choi as runner ups. Winners: Jittasak Narknisorn “Posi+ive Lounge Chair” I started…

CityRacks is a competition that seeks to find new solutions for NYC’s bike locking/parking fixtures.  The deadline for entries was June 9th. Competition Brief | Previously in the News Andrew Lang and Harry Dobbs