This is thought to be the most important award for industrial design in China. The China Red Star Award is known all over the world. Its goal is to recognise and encourage the best design achievements in a wide range of activities. These include the design for communication technology, computers, transportation, packaging, leisure and recreation, medicine and science, domestic lifestyles, and fashion.
Early Beginnings 2006
When the China Red Star competition began in 2006, there were about 400 entries. By 2009, there were 3,821 entries (when it was formally endorsed by ICSID). By 2015, this number had grown to well over 5,000, showing how far Chinese design had come since the turn of the century in its efforts to move away from the simple idea of “Made in China” and toward “Designed in China.”
Red Star Design Award Museum
In 2012, the Red Star Design Award Museum opened. It showed the history of the Award and a collection of the winning designs. Red Star Award products have also been shown at many national and international events around the world, proving over and over again that China is getting better at modern, innovative design. The Award was made by the China Industrial Design Association, the Beijing International Design Centre (BIDC), and the New Economic Weekly, all of which are very important Chinese design groups.
International Recognition
As with a number of other new national design awards in countries that also want to recognise the good, original design, the judging panel is made up of experts from both inside and outside the country. This helps give the credibility of the award on an international level. Peter Zec, a former president of ICSID and the president of the Red Dot Design Award, Ernesto Gismondi, Toshiyuki Kita, Soon-in Lee, a former president of ICSID and the president of the Seoul Design Center, and Brandon Glen, a former president of ICSID and the chair of the Australian Design Award, have all served on international juries. 2014 China Red Star Award Gold Prize winners included Dyson Cool fans, Peng Chen’s modular Baraka-bed, and Zhang Shengwei and Li Xiang’s Ankara Stainless Metro Project. Silver Prize winners included Mode’s Electric Suitcase, which is both an electric vehicle and a suitcase, Imagination Design Company’s Smart Wifi Light bulb, and Weizhe Ma’s Thermo-Spot Wok.
Sources
Woodham, J. M. (2006). A dictionary of modern design. Oxford University Press.