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20/6/03
Designer of the Year
Design Museum, London, 1 March—29 June 2003.
The judging panel of London Design Museum’s
‘Designer of the Year’ award this year shortlisted four
candidates. They were: Rockstar Games, the designers of video game,
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City; Jonathon Ive, the designer of
Apple's iMac, iBook, iPod and other products; Tord Boontje, a Dutch
designer trained at the Royal College of Art in London, whose very
decorative light fittings use ultra modern manufacturing techniques;
and Solange Azagury-Partridge, a jeweller whose ‘quirky’,
‘chunky’ and ‘exotic’ rings have been snapped
up by Madonna and Kate Moss. The winner, Jonathon Ive, received
prize money of £25,000, provided by the Design Museum.
Going round the exhibition, which continues until the end of June,
it became clear that there were no unifying criteria against which
the four finalists could be judged. How do you compare groundbreaking
electronic equipment with a video game? Or with a bubble gum pink
ring whose top flicks open to reveal an uncut diamond and a Union
flag confection of red, white and blue enamel with a ruby in its
centre (bought by Elton John)? And how do you compare these products
with the chandelier, made in the shape of a horse, that has crystal
globes suspended on nylon wire and halogen lamps on a steel frame
made by Tord Boontje? In the days of the Council of Industrial Design
(before it turned into the Design Council), at least the Design
Centre Awards were given to specific categories of products judged,
arguably, by criteria based on form-follows-function and truth-to-materials.
There is a further departure made by the Designer of the Year Award,
namely that this year there was not only a panel of judges —
including fashion designer Paul Smith, product designer, Marc Newson,
Paula Antonelli from the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the
design historian, Emily King — but also the chance for the
public to vote; 20,000 actually did so. While the Design Museum
will not give a breakdown of the votes, it appears, however, that
the public vote and the judges were in agreement.
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