The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the Best in Show for the 2012 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) at its annual international conference in Boston. Nike claimed the Best in Show nod for its Nike+ FuelBand.
Designed by Nike Digital Sport and partners, the Nike+ FuelBand is a sports motivator. It tracks activity as NikeFuel, a universal metric based on oxygen kinetics mapped to activities and associated movements. This allows athletes to compare, compete and collaborate across activities, regardless of gender and body type. Whether the user walks, dances or plays catch, the more one moves, the more NikeFuel one earns. The FuelBand also tracks calorie and step count-and is also a watch. The experience doesn't end on the wrist; all of the data captured on the band syncs to a rich mobile or Web-based experience. The Nike+ FuelBand merges the digital and physical worlds to motivate and inspire athletes to make every day count.
"The IDEA 2012 jury awarded the Nike+ FuelBand the Best in Show because we felt it was simply a great, complete and compelling bit of product design," said IDEA's 2012 Jury Chair Rhys Newman, head of advanced projects at Nokia. "It represented a clear signal of the value of multidisciplinary designers coming together to make an outstanding product. Nike+ FuelBand is an example of total product design - excellent hardware, great user interface and user experience. Best of all, it's a product that's a catalyst to positive behavioral change."
Designed by Panasonic, the LED Clear Bulb received the Sustainability Award. The LED Clear Bulb is the first to recreate the mood, quality and look of an incandescent bulb while offering a rated lifespan of 40,000 hours. The LED light source resembles a filament that effectively disperses light in all directions. Since it has the same dimensions as an incandescent, the LED Clear Bulb can be used with any light fixture that uses an incandescent.
The Embrace Infant Warmer took home the People's Choice Award. Created by Jane Chen, Linus Liang, Naganand Murty and Rahul Alex Panicker, the Embrace Infant Warmer is an affordable product designed for premature and low-birth-weight babies to prevent hypothermia in developing countries.
Chosen by The Henry Ford, EzyStove received the Curator's Choice Award. EzyStove is a wood-burning stove that was created and produced locally for developing countries needing a solution to replace cooking over an open fire.