JIDPO Unveils 2009 G-Mark Best-15 Winners

Environmental consciousness is a prominent trend of the y

Once again the long-awaited results of a highly regarded design promoter—Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO)—have been announced in October. The 2009 Good Design Awards honors some of the brightest minds worldwide in the design profession. In 2009, the JIDPO received 2,952 applications worldwide. After being screened twice, 1,034 entries from 558 enterprises received the Good Design Award, or the “G-Mark”, including the Good Design Award Best 15 and other special awards.

The Good Design Award Best 15 winners are eligible for the Good Design Grand Award. One of the main factors for the elite status attached to the G-Mark Best 15 is, besides the reputation enjoyed by the Japanese industry for being fastidious, dedicated and perfectionist, its 53-year history, enabling the G-Mark title to be among the top-4 peers, including iF and reddot of Germany as well as IDEA of the United State. In addition, G-Mark Best 15 winners are perceived as opus in design caliber, and having the potential, and sometimes in reality, to achieve commercial success.

Founded in 1957, the G-Mark system is Japan's only comprehensive design evaluation and commendation system, originally aiming to promote, nurture local industry. But with globalization, the Good Design Awards now accepts global submissions, and has honored some 34,000 products to date.

Commenting on the general impressions of the 2009 Good Design Award screening, Hiroshi Naito, chair of the jury, said that the Good Design Awards has been an ongoing opportunity to ask “What's good?” in design for more than half a century, and 2009 was no exception.

“Environmental consciousness was a prominent trend this year, as might be expected. Already, eco-friendly design is becoming less something to boast about than something taken for granted. Times are changing, and we can see a shift from ideological environmentalism to a constant awareness of these issues in everyday matters. People are focusing on what is possible through design predicated on environmental soundness. The trend will probably continue for some time,” said Naito.

G-Mark Best-15 Winners Summarized

Massage chair [Panasonic EP-MS40]

Company: Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.

Designer: Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.

A sofa massager closely resembling a comfy sofa than a typical chair massager, this item has a full range of massage functions, and is compact, simple to suit various decors. The designer has taken special care to develop a sofa massager that does not look like one. All the features have been newly developed—back height, overall size, round form, an easily-stowable foot massager, and replaceable covers in 10 colors—making the unit totally new.

Cyclone Cleaner [DC26 turbinehead entry]

Category: Human Body

Company: Dyson KK

Designer: Dyson Limited Chairman James Dyson

Designed specially for typically small Japanese homes, the DC26—the smallest, lightest vacuum cleaner in Dyson history—is highly maneuverable and easy to operate. In addition, Dyson’s unique, patented Root Cyclone technology is certified by independent testers to remove more dust than counterparts. Its cleaner head, featuring the new V-ball technology for smooth operation, literally sticks to floors.

Fractal shade [Fractal shade for your better outdoor life]

Category: Living

Company: LOSFEE Co., Ltd.

Designer: LOSFEE Co., Ltd. + Kiyohito Tamotsu, Reform Kagoshima Co., Ltd.

Inspired by “fractals,” where smaller parts are similar to the larger in a bio-system, in nature as leaf patterns and tree branches, the designer has developed a new sunshade in the shape of a Sierpinski tetrahedron. This sunshade has a new, natural design that provides comfortable shade and ventilation as offered by trees in hot urban environments and outdoors. Its lightweight, foldable aluminum frame makes installation easy, and its cloth openings create scattered light as sunshine filters through trees. This is the best way to cool users with natural ventilation, without emitting heat.

Hybrid Vehicle [INSIGHT]

Category: Living

Company: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Designer: Automobile R&D Center Department, Honda

The Hybrid may set the standard in a new generation of green, compact cars. Aiming to deliver easy-to-use package and comfortable ride with superior eco-friendliness, Honda realizes performance and high efficiency at an affordable price. Its exterior is aerodynamic and interior offers joy of driving, comfort for passengers, and advanced feel for a hybrid. The Ecological Drive Assist System, a standard equipment, achieves improved fuel efficiency. The entire package enhances the green effort without a question.

Hybrid Vehicle [TOYOTA PRIUS]

Category: Living

Company: Toyota Motor Corp.

Designer: Toyota Motor Corp.

This third-generation Prius aims to achieve both outstanding eco-performance and enhanced driving pleasure. Its THS II system enables motor speed reduction, with a hybrid system that is 90% or more redeveloped. Still distinctively a triangle silhouette, a Prius trademark, the Prius has refined aerodynamics to improve fuel economy and achieves one of the world's best cD at 0.25. Overall, the package realizes the world's best fuel performance at 38.0 km/l when driving in 10/15 mode, with power equivalent to that of a 2.4-liter engine.

Spindle Motor [SJ-D Series]

Category: Work

Company: Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Designer: Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

The SJ-D is a series of frame-type spindle motors, categorized as frame-type and built-in, typically installed in lower-priced machine tools. Not only is demand for cost-efficient machine tools rising in Asia, but even industrially developed nations are needing energy-efficient, highly reliable machine tools and motors. This series meets such needs by significantly improving performance relative to earlier Mitsubishi models, by designing electrical and structural pieces with high-precision analytical technologies.

CCFL lighting fixture unit [+CLine MMC 07101/ 09101 Series]

Category: Living

Company: NEC Lighting, Ltd.

Designer: NEC Lighting, Ltd.

This lighting fixture is compact, has long-life and taps the advantages of extra-thin lamps. The designer, by including the above-mentioned features, has created a fixture that can be installed into furniture and is suitable for various decors and building materials, realizing lighting solutions inconceivable in the past.

Ultrasound Scanner [Ultrasound Scanner HI VISION Preirus]

Category: Society

Company: Hitachi Medical Corp.

Designer: Hitachi, Ltd.

This ultrasound scanner achieves rapid adaptability with a platform designed specially to make easy examination of patients in various postures, upright or seated, as well as children and various body parts. Made to be operator-friendly, the unit employs single-action variable positioning and a rotating structure. Controls are positioned so the main keys, centered on a trackball, fit in the palm of the hand, enabling eyes-off operation. Also the illuminated buttons enable prolonged operation in the dark, even by colorblind technicians.

Public restroom [RESTROOM ITEM 01]

Category: Society

Company: Toto Ltd.

Designer: Toto Ltd.

Toto, widely seen as a standard-setter in sanitary ware, has developed a solution that is often overlooked as low-priority. The designer reexamined the concept of public restroom—reevaluating the essence of such facilities—by developing an ideal set of amenities that would appeal to and be user-friendly to all. Above all, Toto may have achieved a future standard in public restrooms with a life cycle longer than 10 years. Raising the design features of harmony, unity, universal design, and ecology to new heights, Toto has developed a public restroom suitable for virtually any setting that is easy to use by anyone.

Station and Compound Building [IWAMIZAWA Compound Station Building]

Category: Living

Company: WorkVisions Architects Office

Designer: WorkVisions Architects Office

The IWAMIZAWA Compound Station Building, opened in June 2007, is a good example of a multi-functional building that is seeing its concept copied elsewhere. WorkVisions Architects has developed this structure as a multi-purpose venue for the city of Iwamizawa. Besides offering various services, this one-size-fits-all building is connected to the open Ariake passage that links the districts to the north and south of the station. As an entry by the WorkVisions Co., Ltd. to the Iwamizawa Station building architectural design competition (held in 2004 as the JR Group’s first nationwide, open design contest), this development has created a new face for the city of Iwamizawa.

Mini Notebook PC [N310]

Category: Network

Company: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Designer: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

The N310 is a mini-notebook PC based on a new concept, employing friendly form and gentle feel in a precision electronic product. Departing purposefully from angular exterior form and glossy finish symbolizing state-of-the-art devices that can turn off users, the N310 has softer, warmer surfaces. In addition, this design proactively addresses green issues by using a unique dual-part housing—with only an upper and lower component—hence minimizing resources used in manufacturing multiple parts.

Digital Camera [Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF1C]

Category: Network

Company: Panasonic Corp.

Designer: Panasonic Corp.

This is the world’s smallest digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera with exchangeable lenses, compatible with the AVCHD Lite Micro Four-Thirds standard. It uses a newly developed F1.7, 20 mm short-focal-length lens (40 mm when converted to the 35-mm standard). Besides adhering to the universal value and essence of a camera—descriptive functions, operability, and reliability—this design also realizes intuitive operation, such as a live-viewing feature and high-resolution three-inch (3:2) LCD screen, which enable the building of a compact, slim form by including a retractable flash and leaving out an EVF viewfinder.

46" LED LCD TV [LED 7000]

Category: Network

Company: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Designer: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

The world's first ultra-slim LED-backlit LCD TV, the LED7000, dual-injection made, gives an impression of an art object made of glass, with the black color appearing within its transparent crystal-like material. The frame color makes the structure literally melt into clear water, achieving effects of natural light. The transparent stand helps the TV to achieve lightness, as if the unit floats in mid air, an effect enhanced by the light-sensitive knob shaped like a drop of water, further complementing the overall artistic impression of the design.

LCD Flat Panel HDTV ["BRAVIA" ZX1 Series]

Category: Network

Company: Sony Corp.

Designer: Sony Corp.

The Bravia ZX1 series TV, at 9.9 mm thick in its thinnest part, has raised the bar for designers pursuing slimness, leading the world as the thinnest TV. Furthermore, the unit includes a wireless media receiver capable of wirelessly transmitting high-definition video to the TV, without the hassle of cable clutter. Available in design suitable for any d?cor, Bravia enables high-quality, real-time transmission of full-HD video of all kinds of entertainment.

Green Tokyo Gundam Project

Category: Network

Company: Green Tokyo Gundam Project Committee

Designer: Green Tokyo Gundam Project Committee

The Green Tokyo Gundam Project is a new program in which the citizens, government, and businesses of Tokyo worked as a team to communicate a message on urban renewal with abundant greenery and development of highly attractive urban environments, centered on Shiokaze Park in Tokyo’s Odaiba District and held from July 11 to August 31, 2009. Appreciating Gundam’s support of the project, an 18-meter-high, full-sized statue of Mobile Suit Gundam was created to mark the 30th anniversary of the broadcast of the eponymous animated series, drawing crowds and attracting attention. Despite the well-intention of the project, which also aimed to be part of the bid to hold a “Green Olympics” in Tokyo in 2016, the participants lost against Brazil.