INDEX: Award 2019 – Design to Improve Life

INDEX: Award 2019 – Design to Improve Life now is over!

INDEX: Award, the biggest design award in the world is currently accepting nominations for its 2019 edition inviting all Designers, private individuals, public and private companies, schools, universities, organizations, associations, students and design enthusiasts from all over the world to participate.

About Competition

The INDEX: Award, the biggest design award in the world — commonly referred to as the “Nobel Prize of design”, is currently accepting nominations for its 2019 edition with unique focus on design that improves life for people by addressing global challenges with sustainable solutions.

INDEX: Design to Improve Life is a Danish NPO with global reach that Inspire, Educate and Engage in designing sustainable solutions to global challenges, by showing people how their personal lives and the lives of people around them can be improved by Design to Improve Life. They do this through INDEX: Award, the biggest design award in the world, widely recognized as the most important design award in the world. INDEX: Award showcases the positive outcome and effect of the world’s best examples of Design to Improve Life addressing important issues such as clean water, education, energy production, overpopulation, elderly care, etc.

The importance lies in the unique, over-arching theme of Design to Improve Life: a concept enabling design to be used as a tool to address the world’s biggest challenges and reach our biggest goals. This concept has established INDEX: Award as a global, inspirational design beacon.

INDEX: Award is split into five categories:

• Body - comprises all designs related to the body, such as clothing, appliances, aids/tools used in treatment and care, etc. The category also comprises systems and services related to health and care as well as strategies regarding vital processes and public health.

• Home - comprises all designs related to the home, such as architecture, interior design, lighting, gadgets, furniture, tools, appliances, utility systems, software and communications hardware etc. Services and processes for the home and strategies for new ways of living as well as new forms of cohabitation are also in this category

• Work - comprises all designs related to work, such as work tools, manufacturing machines, aids and communications, architecture and interior design, control and management systems. The category also comprises services for work environments and strategies for issues related to this, as well as strategies for organizational and managerial development.

• Play & Learning - comprises all designs related to sport, play, education, learning, leisure and culture, such as the design of education programs, education tools, leisure facilities, tools, games and equipment used for sports, cultural activities and more.

• Community - comprises all designs of things that we share communally, such as roads, bike paths, public spaces and parks, cities, infrastructure, means of transport, signage, mass media and communications. The design of strategies, services and concepts for society, networking and communities are also part of this category.

Each category calls for entries from very different design fields using underlying goals as perspective for how we can use design as a tool to solve the issues of global and local societies – thus creating Design to Improve Life. The underlying framework of these categories is the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), as we find it essential to be aligned with an agenda agreed upon by the entire world.

What is eligible for INDEX: Award?

• Design that improves life or holds the potential to do so.
• Tangible design (products, digital design, architecture, urban planning) or intangible (concepts, policies, strategies, services, systems) design.
• Genuinely new design. Sheer restyling of known designs is not sufficient unless it creates a genuinely new use or adds new value.
• Design that is at prototype stage (at a minimum).
• Design that dates back no more than five years.
• Design that was not previously selected as a finalist or winner for INDEX: Award.

Nominated designs must be original and may not infringe on the rights of a third party.

The international INDEX: Award Jury identifies winners and finalists for INDEX: Award by assessing how the nominated designs feed into the UN Sustainable Development Goals or the Design to Improve Life Goals.

The INDEX: Award jury evaluates all nominated designs on three separate parameters:

• Form is concerned with the general aesthetics of a design such as the color, materials, user interface, surfaces etc.
• Impact is about the positive effect of a design. How does it improve life and for how many people? How socially, economically and environmentally sustainable is the design?
• Context is about meeting the needs of where the design will be used. How well does it work with the society, culture, religion, climate, geography and ethics?

All winners and finalists selected by the international INDEX: Award Jury according to the three criteria of Form, Impact and Context, representing not only the appearance of the design but also its ability to improve life for its user.

The INDEX: Award 2019 winners will be unveiled in August/September 2019 in Denmark.

There are no entry fees to participate!

Eligibility

Designers, private individuals, public and private companies, schools, universities, organizations, associations, students and design enthusiasts from all over the world can nominate for INDEX: Award.