How to effectively submit your product to Red Dot Award: Product Design 2018

As one of the world’s largest design competitions, the Red Dot Award guarantees a fair and independent assessment.

The regular registration phase for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2018 is well under way.

Manufacturers and designers can enter their best products at the regular rate up until 16 January 2018.

“Latecomers” still have until 9 February to register.

Here is the process:

• After submission for the competition is complete
• the next step is to prepare the products for the competition
• and to send them, as each object must be made available in the original form for the adjudication process
• After that, it will be up to the international jury to judge the design quality of the entries.
• In March 2018, the jury members will convene for an adjudication process spanning several days in order to test and assess the products.

© Red Dot – Juror Aleks Tatic

International experts assess original entries

The heart of the Red Dot Award: Product Design is its jury.

Recognised experts from all over the world ensure the high quality standards of the competition and thus the reputation of the Red Dot label thanks to their specialist knowledge.

As one of the world’s largest design competitions, the Red Dot Award guarantees a fair and independent assessment.

All jury members are bound by the Code of Honour, which states that they cannot take part in the evaluation of a product if they were involved in its production process.

In addition, no jury member is permitted to be employed by a manufacturing industrial firm.

This prevents them from judging their own achievements or the achievements of direct competitors.

© Red Dot

There is one special aspect to the judging process: each product is submitted as a functioning original, and the experts can handle it and try it out.

This is an important basis for the evaluation process, as photos and presentation boards alone do not provide certainty of a product’s design quality.

The touch and feel of an object, which encompasses factors such as the materiality, the finish and the surface structure, play an equally important role.

Functionality, too, can only be appreciated when the original product is made available.

© Red Dot – Juror Vincent CrÇrance

Correct presentation of the products

An effective presentation of the product that fills the jury members with enthusiasm, and in a best-case scenario wins them over, is especially important.

This is why entrants can submit product displays, presentation charts, brief description texts, images or a video in addition to the original product in order to give the jury a comprehensive impression of the product.