Companies, design studios, research institutions and designers from 58 countries entered their latest product concepts in the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2017 (Oscar of the design world) – a record of 4,724 entries. Assessed by 20 experts from all over the world, the selected concepts were finally awarded in Singapore on October 18, 2017. The cheering part is that one of the winning concepts is from HNUST, “Instant co-pipe”—the design of stirring stick in instant coffee packaging, and its design team was invited to attend the award ceremony. The team consists of five undergraduates from the Architecture and Art Design School of HNUST—Luo Rui, Deng Shunyuan, Qin Yimeng, Li Shijin and Bu Dan, who accomplished the concept together under the guidance of their two teachers—Wu Zhijun and Wang Yue. This is the second Red Dot Award won by HNUST students!
Initiated by the German Design ZentrumNordrhein Westfalen six decades ago, the Red Dot Award has matured into one of the most prestigious international award for design concepts at a professional level, known as “the Oscar of the design world” and “one of the three top international design awards”,the other two being the IF Design Award of Germany and the IDEA Design Award of the US. It attracts numerous competitors from almost one hundred countries every year, including colleges and universities, design institutes, enterprises and individuals, exerting significant influence in the world.
The innovation of the work, “Instant co-pipe”—the design of stirring stick in instant coffee packaging, lies in the stirring functionality of the packaging realized by adding a hard edge in a shape of a stirring straw to the original elongated packaging bag— the hard edge could be torn from the package and then be used as a stirring stick. Such design concept not only refreshes people’s experience of the instant coffee packaging but also fulfills the requirement of humanization design for sustainable recycle.
These five undergraduates of its design team are members of Jujiang Art & Design Studio under the Innovation & Business Incubator of HNUST. In fact, several undergraduates’ design studios have been organized by Industrial Design and Product Design disciplines, in accordance with the crucial direction of educational reform—developing students’ practical ability, innovative and entrepreneurial ability. In recent years, a number of design works of those studios have won prizes in various competitions, such as "the China Red Star Design Award", "the LotusPrize International Industrial Design and Innovation Competition", "the China Pioneer Design Award", "Times Young Creative Award", “the National Industrial Design Contest for College Students”, etc.
(Translated by Luo Yan ，Yu Ling)
