Last but not least I’d like to finish my report about the BraunPrize 2007 forum with referring to the head of Braun Design: Peter Schneider.
First of all let me state that Peter is far more relaxed than it might appear here in the video. If you meet him in person he truly is an energetic, curious while still a critical person. During the jury meetings I’ve always experienced him as an experienced juror which is no wonder since this has been his 8th BraunPrize jury he has participated in!
What Peter emphasises and illustrates in his forum address is the relation between Braun Design principles and their reflection in the BraunPrize itself. For him design is most innovative if it is able to generate value for the user in combination with design quality. And for sure this is also the key premise for successfully competing in the BraunPrize as well.
However he has lots more of advice to share. While one might think that submissions that are close to Braun’s product lines are being favoured Peter explains that this is not the case at all. For him design with the people/user in mind and design that is embedded in our everyday lives (work, health, recreation, leisure, sports, family, etc.) is what the BraunPrize is about. And as you will understand Donn Koh’s submission has addressed most of these criteria very well.
Anyway if you want to get a better understanding what it takes to make it to the last round of future BraunPrize entries listen to Peter’s speech! Any while I’m at it: Hopefully see, hear, read about you here on this blog when it comes to: BraunPrize 2009!
From my very own perspective I find it a great ‘unspoken rule’ that the BraunPrize jury needs to comprise at least one woman. Moni Wolf filled her role in a perfect fashion as she combined freshness of attitude with insights from technology & innovation (facilitated by her responsibilities at her employer Motorola) paired with curiosity on emerging future trends.
Therefore it’s no wonder that in her address Moni emphasised the intelligent and very often seamless use of technology in the various entries. But most importantly she highlights that from her perspective this has not been done for the sake of technology itself, but rather for solving complex problems with quite simple, yet intelligent and effective solutions.
According to her view from the very beginning submissions & designs that made offers to relevant, implementable solutions while still keeping aesthetics in mind made it smoothly to the next stage of the judging process.
In any case she has lots more of advice. So listen to her forum address:
Next in line has been Dr. Mark Breitenberg from Art Center College, Pasadena/US. In his adorable way of articulating complex issues via the selected use of the English language Mark thanked Braun for the perfect organisation of the competition as well as for applying the high quality standards of Braun Design to the execution of the BraunPrize competition itself.
One of his key remarks has been that as a member of the ICSID board he is visiting a lot of design schools around the globe. Accordingly he is pretty much impressed how well design students use their skills in order to not only solve everyday problems, but also more and more issues that address our quality of life as well as environmental issues.
For him quite a few BraunPrize entrants (he estimates almost 50%) demonstrated that there is a great sense of social and ethical responsibility reflected in their thinking and designs. However listen to him yourself:
Well what remains to be shared here are the short statements the BraunPrize jury members addressed at the audience of the BraunPrize forum.
I’d like to start with Benjamin Holch. The jury membership of Benjamin this year has been a sort of novum for the BraunPrize since Benjamin was a BraunPrize Winner himself back in 2003. Accordingly he has experienced the process of judging from a slightly different angle as it has been only four years since he stood on the panel presenting his very own entry as well.
In his short address he openly shares his memories from his participation in 2003 as well as his observations from the perspective of a 2007 jury member.
From my very own perspective I’ve experienced his participation in the jury as very stimulating and valuable as he seemed to act as a kind of mediator between students/participants and the more distant design professionals of the jury.
And last, but not least here we have the BraunPrize winner presentation delivered by: Donn Koh!
I must say and as already touched in an earlier posting that Donn surprised me in many ways. When we’ve met for the first time at the “get in touch” dinner the evening before the BraunPrize forum I found him more or less jet-lagged as he’s just arrived from Korea and still needed to do some fine tuning to his presentation.
So during the morning rehearsal he had to simultaneously work on his presentation as well as participating in the discussions about the presentations of his colleagues. However the atmosphere turned out to be so cooperative that the rest of the group even helped him with hints and suggestions.
After all Donn developed the real final kick to his presentation during the lunch break before the ceremony when he added some great films about an early prototype of his chair in a kids hospital as well showing flash animations on the technical functions of the up and down aid mechanism built into the chair. By doing so he thoughtfully illustrated what the jury described as follows:
“LeapFrog’ not only supports the physical development, but also the independence and self-confidence of the child. It reinterprets a ‘painfully’ medical appearance with a product that appears to be caring and playful.”
So at the end of the day it has been no surprise that Donn turned out to be the winner of the finale. My hot tip was Franziskas entry, but as I’ve understood several jurors later on Donn’s concept addressed a broader and more “serious” range of issues. Later on in the Q&A part of the forum (a video will be shared later on as well) one questioner even suggested to transfer the idea of the concept to elderly/handicapped people as well.
In total and from my very own perspective I wouldn’t conclude that the BraunPrize can only be won with “serious” designs positioned in the area of medical health care. On the contrary the selection of the four finalists’ designs by the jury illustrated the variety of topics and objects “worth” to be a “BraunPrize Finalist”!
Even though last in row in terms of the finalists’ presentations I’d like to present Bruno Peral Bey prior to this times’ winner Donn Koh.
However first of all it can’t be overheard that Bruno is actually Spanish origin; and I say that in the most positive way. Similar to people from other southern European countries like Portugal, France, Italy or Greece (just to name a few) their local accent really adds a positive, individual and mostly cosmopolitan flavor to such events.
On the other hand one might not underestimate the number of southern American participants from Universities and Organizations (like ICSID President-Elect Prof. Carlos Hinrichsen from Chile) who came across the Atlantic Ocean just for this event! I think it has only been during my last summer vacation ever since I’ve listened to so many people speaking Spanish in a single room ;-)
And while talking about “communal/community” the jury absolutely touched the most relevant aspect of Bruno’s entry: the socializing around the object is as important, if not even more important, than the object itself. This by the way is also one of the key ideas around Franziska’s triops camera!
So, prospective BraunPrize participants: Listen to Bruno’s show about “Mengin” and learn about the power of socializing ;-)
Actually I’ve found that Lena and David really had to deal with the considerable burden of opening the finalists presentation part of the BraunPrize forum. However I found that they’ve done a great job which prepared the stage well for Franziska whose presentation followed straight away.
During the morning rehearsal we’ve identified that the opening of a 10 minutes presentation is to be considered as a very important element of a dramaturgy. Accordingly we’ve discussed several approaches how to start with a smart and individual approach.
So Franziska decided to take a picture of the audience prior to starting her presentation! Among others the aim of her approach was to demonstrate how tricky it is to be both a photographer and object of a photo at the same time. During the time to remain she lively explained and illustrated in which ways her submission titled “triops” resolves this paradox.
In terms of “adding personal flavor” her presentation was a good example on how to create a case from a very “personal” perspective in contrast to Lena and David who presented in a more “objective/neutral” fashion. So in case you’d plan to submit your design for the BraunPrize 2009 watch the videos closely and learn from the successful ones ;-)
For the first time the whole BraunPrize Ceremony has been taped on video (well this has been done at previous BraunPrize events as well) and for the first time completely processed for online use. Even though I personally think that the intensity of experiences of virtual exhibitions are somehow limited this particular one is a great example how to bring a live feeling to those of you who couldn’t have attended the BraunPrize in realtime this year.
Anyway let’s go ahead and introduce the first presenters on that afternoon in September. Lena Billmeier and David Baur presented their project “Vision Energy“. From my perspective this has been a project which is a good example for an entry at the intersection of Art and Design. Interestingly many people I’ve talked to later on during dinner said that they found it quite courageous (in the most positive way!) that the jury selected this somehow unconventional entry. Beside several details consider it a great approach to create a new (fictive) organization namely the “IRO International Resource Organization” in order to illustrate the conciseness of their concept. After all let’s shortly quote from the BraunPrize site on the character of their submission:
“Small objects for private households and sculptures for public spaces reflect, by the way of structural and formal mutations, the economization of resources in terms of a benchmark value as defined by the IRO International Resource Organization.”
Side-note: The timing of the placement of the workflow video at the beginning of their presentation has been an idea we’ve developed during the morning rehearsal training ;-) As the video is not sharing too much of their slides I will try to add them later on via “Slideshare“. So stay tuned.
It sometimes takes relentless efforts in order to get what you want ;-) In this case my efforts to convince the three external members of the BraunPrize jury (Moni Wolf, Mark Breitenberg and Benjamin Holch) of staying for a short wrap up video were successful.
I was even more happy that all of them agreed since I’ve already bothered them with individual video interviews last time at the first jury session; you remember? This time I got them all in a body and in contrast to my usual approach of preparing interviews in advance this one was completely spontaneous which fortunately was not to the disadvantage of fun and insight.
However you should view/listen yourself what the three have to share. One issue where they unanimously agreed upon was that the degree of perfection the BraunPrize team under the lead of Gerlinde Kress has demonstrated was by far the best prepared event they’ve experienced.
For me this also results in a competition with equal opportunities since the right timing and form of presentation is essential when it comes to deem of more than 900 entries. Usually such works remains unrecognized for participants like you therefore I’m more than happy that it has been the jury who acknowledges these efforts and shares them with us.
Last but not least a personal note: For the next couple of weeks it will be summer vacation time for this blog as well. For sure you can leave your comments whenever you want or ask the BraunPrize team any questions directly by email at: info at braunprize dot com
I will be back in charge later in August and share some closer information during the weeks to come until the grand finale BraunPrize 2007 ceremony on September 12th. Have a nice summer and stay tuned!
