The Award recipients will be honored at an Oct. 18 gala dinner at Cooper-Hewitt. Mrs. Laura Bush serves as the Honorary Patron for this year’s National Design Awards.“Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Awards continue to provide a vital platform for the recognition and discussion of the role of design in our everyday lives,” said Thompson. “We are delighted to recognize this year’s accomplished group of honorees, who represent the very best in design and contribute immensely to a diverse range of fields.”
The 2007 National Design Awards nominations were solicited from a committee of more than 800 leading designers, educators, journalists, cultural figures and corporate leaders from every state in the nation. A jury of experts, selected by Cooper-Hewitt, reviewed the nominations and selected finalists and winners in each category. Further broadening the scope of the Awards program, Cooper-Hewitt will hold the second annual National Design Week this fall. Throughout the week, the museum will host a series of public programs and celebrate design on its Web site with initiatives such as the People’s Design Award, which gives the general public an opportunity to nominate and vote for a design of their choice by logging onto http://www.cooperhewitt.org
Product Design, Jonathan Ive
Given for work in the design of consumer goods, technology or home and office furnishings, the 2007 Product Design Award is presented to Jonathan Ive, the senior vice president of industrial design at Apple Inc., where, since 1996, he has led a product design team widely regarded as one of the industry’s best. Ive’s streamlined design aesthetic, combined with a strong knowledge of the engineering process, has brought design into the public consciousness in an unprecedented way. Creating some of the most innovative products of the past decade, ranging from the iMac and iBook to the now iconic iPod, Ive has not only made complex technological devices user-friendly, he has designed sculptural, desirable objects. He was named Designer of the Year (2003) by the Design Museum of London, awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts and was included as a finalist in this category in 2006. Apple was included in the 2000 and 2006 National Design Triennials and won the 2000 Corporate Achievement Award.
See all of the award winners here.