BUSINESS WEEK Announces Industrial Design Excellence Awards for 2000; Annual Awards Recognize Best Product Designs; Apple, Herman Miller, Target Among Multiple Winners.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2000

From innovative office-space design, to kid-friendly digital cameras to a one-stop gas pump where you can check e-mail and order food online while filling up your tank, product design is fast emerging as a pathfinder for the New Economy.

The Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for 2000, published in the June 12th issue of BUSINESS WEEK, highlight the trend of corporations' turning to designers to create concept products that show what can work in the marketplace. Product design's focus on users and its ability to match consumer needs with appropriate technologies makes it a critical discipline for the New Economy.

In both their form and function, this year's IDEA winners reflect a buoyant optimism. The entries were judged by the Industrial Designers Society of America and the awards sponsored by BUSINESS WEEK. The core group of winners this year are Net-connected, digital, problem-solving devices that are transparent, slim, and light. "They pushed the fulcrum of technology but paid attention to how people used products," said juror Henry Kim of Hill-Rom in Hatboro, Pa.

Large corporations around the world won many awards, with Apple taking five, Herman Miller four, Target four, Samsung three, and others picking up two apiece. Big design consultancies did well, too: IDEO led with six, followed by Hauser with five, frogdesign with four, Herbst LaZar Bell with four, and Ziba with four. Design Continuum and Smart Design each won three.

Smaller design firms won big, too -- such as Design Guys in Minneapolis, Carter Design in Denver, Design Science in Philadelphia, Mauk Design in San Francisco, and Altitude in Boston. Others were Product Insight in Acton, Mass.; Design Central in Columbus, Ohio; Manta in Cambridge, Mass.; and Strategics in Bozeman, Mont.

There were 1,078 entries this year, with 110 coming from 15 foreign countries. They include Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Singapore. The 16 jurors handed out 40 gold awards, 71 silvers, and 51 bronzes. The entire list of 2000 IDEA winners appear in the June 12th issue of BUSINESS WEEK (on newsstands through June 12) or on the magazine's website at www.businessweek.com. Here are a few standouts from this year's list:

- Olive 1:1 in New York won a gold for revamping the very

concept of "work." The Resolve workstations create minimalist

offices, with canopies, not panels, posts to carry wiring, and

a geometry favoring openness and communication.

- Smart Design came up with a replacement for ever-smaller cell

phones and personal digital assistants with--the Thumbscript

keypad, nine buttons that can be punched in the right sequence

to write all 26 letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers

and symbols.

- Herbst LaZar Bell created a new idea for a gas pump: Check

your e-mail, order food online, and, of course, pay at the

pump as you fill 'er up.

- Apple Computer's iSub woofer speaker and big Cinema Display

monitor are as elegant as they are functional.

- Ziba won a gold award for identifying appropriate innovations

and suggesting possible new opportunities for a range of

personal information-management products.

- Samsung's digital camera for kids and its computer monitor

completely capture the techno zeitgeist with their

lightweight, thin frames.

Awards also went to frogdesign, titanium electric, and Design Continuum, which designed a new look in Web sites--helpful, engaging, customizable, friendly, and quiet. Brash, screaming sites are definitely out.