2014 National Design Award Winners
2014 National Design Award Winners
The National Design Awards program celebrates design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement.
Lifetime Achievement:
Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar
View Full Gallery
(Chermayeff) View Full Gallery
(Geismar)
Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar are the founding partners of Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, a New York–based brand design firm behind many of the world’s most iconic and recognizable trademarks. Since 1958, Chermayeff and Geismar have pioneered the modern movement of idea-driven graphic design across every discipline, specializing in brand identities, exhibitions, print and motion graphics, and art in architecture. They have created more than a hundred identities for clients such as Chase Manhattan Bank, Mobil Oil, Showtime, New York University, PBS, and National Geographic. Chermayeff and Geismar have been awarded nearly every recognition bestowed by the profession, including the AIGA Gold Medal, the Yale Arts Medal, and the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame honor, and their work continues to receive worldwide acclaim. Back to top
Design Mind:
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski is a writer and emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Now living in Philadelphia, he has written eighteen books and several hundred essays and reviews on architecture, urbanism, and design. He has contributed to the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and the New York Times, and has been an architecture critic for Saturday Night, Wigwag, and Slate. The recipient of the 2007 Vincent Scully Prize, Rybczynski’s critically acclaimed books include the J. Anthony Lukas Prize-winning A Clearing in the Distance, Home: A Short History of an Idea, Last Harvest, Makeshift Metropolis, and How Architecture Works: A Humanist’s Toolkit, which was a finalist for the Marfield Prize for writing on the arts. From 2004 to 2012, Rybczynski served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Back to top
Corporate & Institutional Achievement:
Etsy
Etsy is an online marketplace where people connect to buy and sell unique goods. Since the company’s founding in New York in 2005, Etsy has empowered people to start and grow creative businesses with a mission to re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world. Today, Etsy supports over 1 million shops around the world, and in 2013 alone, these shops sold over $1.35 billion of merchandise. Etsy’s business model allows sellers to keep 96.5 percent of every item sold. Creativity, the joy of making, and inspired design are integral to Etsy and its 30 million member community. Back to top
Architecture Design:
Brooks + Scarpa
Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa are partners in the Los Angeles–based architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa. The firm has garnered international acclaim for its success in marrying an innovative aesthetic with leadership in sustainable and socially progressive design, ingenious applications of building materials, and the incorporation of unique ideas about tactility and spatial experiences in design. The firm has received numerous honors, including awards for such noteworthy Los Angeles projects as the Solar Umbrella House; Cherokee Mixed-Use Lofts; Colorado Court, the first affordable housing project in the country to be LEED-Gold certified; and Step Up on 5th, which provides a home, support services, and rehabilitation for the homeless and special needs population. Back to top
Communication Design:
Office
Office crafts strategies and designs experiences to make things better. Led by Jason Schulte and Jill Robertson, the San Francisco–based studio has developed differentiated solutions for some of the world’s most iconic companies, including Google, Disney, Coca-Cola, Target, and IBM. Rooted in the belief that design should make you feel something, Office is known for work that is grounded in smart strategy and executed in unexpected ways. The studio is equally passionate about its annual pro bono projects, like branding 826 Valencia’s Pirate Supply Store. In 2012, Office launched Wee Society, an award-winning kids’ brand that aims to help parents raise good little people by teaching kindness and sparking imaginations with happy apps, artful activities, and toys to transfix short attention spans. Back to top
Fashion Design:
Narciso Rodriguez
Narciso Rodriguez has redefined American style over the last two decades, playing a singular role in global fashion through his structured and elegantly minimal designs. Based in New York City where he shows his women’s ready-to-wear collections, Rodriguez incorporates a simple, sophisticated sensibility—he makes modern classic clothing that functions both practically and aesthetically. He has received numerous accolades including three CFDA Awards, Pratt Institute’s Fashion Icon Award, and being named one of the “25 Most Influential Hispanics in America” by Time magazine. Rodriguez has collaborated with artists and on several films, and most recently designed costumes for the Stephen Petronio Company’s 30th anniversary season. Back to top
Interaction Design:
Aaron Koblin
Aaron Koblin is an interaction designer known for pioneering new interfaces in crowdsourcing and data visualization. Based in San Francisco, his work explores the changing relationship between humans and the data they create. Notable projects include commissioning 10,000 people to draw a sheep, a 120-foot sculpture visualizing global weather, a website for animators to draw infinite, ever-evolving stories, data-driven music videos for Radiohead and Arcade Fire, and the first crowdsourced music video, The Johnny Cash Project. Koblin leads the Data Arts Team at Google, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Centre Pompidou. He has received numerous accolades, including National Science Foundation awards and multiple Grammy nominations. Back to top
Interior Design:
Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors
New York–based Roman and Williams was founded in 2002 by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch. The pair began by designing residences for notable personalities. In 2009, the firm completed the award–winning Ace and Standard Hotels in New York as well as notable residential building at 211 Elizabeth Street. Their lauded projects include The Dutch and Lafayette with chef Andrew Carmellini, the Freehand Hotel in Miami, the thirty-story Viceroy Hotel in New York, and a product line with Waterworks and Lalique. Recent projects include an eatery for Facebook, a restaurant with Alain Ducasse, and the news room and set for Huffington Post Live. Each Roman and Williams project demonstrates a comprehensive design vision, marking their work as a unique user experience. Back to top
Landscape Architecture:
Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
San Francisco–based Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture is distinguished by its emphasis on the experiential and material quality of the built landscape. Founded in 1998 by Andrea Cochran, FASLA, the firm tackles a wide range of project types and scales, from single family residences to hotels, wineries, affordable housing, schools, institutions, and public parks. Sustainability is central to the practice, and each project is instilled with a sense of intimacy and strong attention to detail. The firm’s work is internationally recognized and has earned numerous awards including seven Honor Awards and an Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 2009, Princeton Architectural Press published the monograph Andrea Cochran: Landscapes. Back to top
Product Design:
LUNAR
LUNAR is a global design and engineering firm that has been creating beautiful, ingenious, and charismatic products and experiences for 30 years. Founded and built by Jeff Smith and Gerard Furbershaw in San Francisco, LUNAR’s work spans consumer, technology, and life science markets for leaders like Oral-B, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, among other global brands. The team brings together consumer insight, design leadership, and engineering horsepower to deliver successes like the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush, market–leading HP computers, and brand-defining genetic sequencers for Illumina. Staying close to its entrepreneurial core, LUNAR has created a variety of new ventures, including Belle-V, an innovative new brand of kitchen tools introduced on Kickstarter, achieving its funding goal on the first day. Back to top.
People’s Design Award:
Spire
Designed by Zhao Zhao, Spire is a personal health-tracking device that is worn on the hip or torso. It determines patterns of breathing, movement and activity through a group of sensors that provide feedback in real time to a user’s smartphone. Based on set personal goals and the data it collects, the device sends messages throughout the day to shift one’s state of mind to improve mood and reduce stress, or inspire activity if one is sedentary. Described as a “mini yogi in your pocket,” Spire was launched in October 2014 after three years in development with a team from Stanford University’s Calming Technology Lab. Back to top
