Best Designed

The winners of the 2010 International Design Excellence Awards 

can help you ride the waves, grill a burger, catch varmints, and save the earth.

The jurors are hypersensitive about the signal their choice will send to the larger design community. Jury chief John Barratt, CEO of product-development firm Teague, insists that the winner be something that people throughout the industry "could be proud of vicariously." He also reminds the panel, "This award is the bellwether of where the industry is and where it's going."

There had been a heated discussion at dinner the previous night about whether the environmental impact of a design should be a consideration in every category, not just in the "eco-design" niche, as in this year's awards. Designers Accord founder Valerie Casey, one of the eco-design category's judges, urged her fellow jurors to make a bold statement by recategorizing that group's entries and measuring all entries' eco-responsibility. The debate continued long after the dishes were cleared, until 2 a.m., when IDEA officials decided that changing the rules midstream, not to mention the logistics of rejudging everything the following morning, made Casey's suggestion unworkable.

One significant result of the discussion: a major change in judging criteria for subsequent years. "When considering products for awards in the future, they will be evaluated on their social, ecological, cultural, as well as economic responsibility," says Clive Roux, chief of the Industrial Designers Society of America, which runs the Dow Corning -- sponsored IDEAs. "The design profession can no longer claim excellence in design unless we have considered the concept of responsibility as a central part of the design problem."

Eventually, the judges decide on Best in Show. The Zune interface loses out: "We don't really want to send a message to the world that we want to make more mobile music players," one juror says. The other three finalists -- the Method bottle, the Slingbox, and the Easy Latrine -- are all named Best in Show. Each has addressed the issues that have been roiling the group, but in different ways. "What's important is telling the story," says Barratt. "These three tell the story. They show responsibility at all levels."

On the pages that follow, you'll find all three Best in Show winners, plus 14 other gold recipients and a sampling of silver and bronze medalists. Visit FastCoDesign.com, a new design site, for an exclusive look at all 150 medalists, plus videos of the judges explaining their choices.

IDEA Best in Show Winners

SlingBox 700U
Method Laundry Detergent With SmartClean Technology
Easy Latrine

Images from top to bottom:

The futuristic Tatou shoe is for practitioners of parkour, the sport of traversing cities as if they were obstacle courses.
Designer: Annika Lüber, University of Applied Science, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

The Cesto Trama laundry basket's weave pattern echoes traditional Brazilian craft, but the use of sugarcane-based resins to reduce plastic consumption is totally modern.
Designer: Bertussi Designdustrial

The all-bamboo base of the bronze-winning Demoiselle six-seater dining table was inspired by aircraft from the 1930s.
Designer: Paulo Foggiato, Oré Brasil

This elegant Oxo cork pull, a bronze medalist, has a built-in foil cutter and the brand's trademark rubber grip.
Designers: SmartDesign and Oxo