July 11, 2008. This Wednesday marked opening night for the I.D. Annual Design Review exhibition in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. The show will be open to the public (admission is free) through September 28. The Annual Design Review is America’s oldest and most prestigious juried design-recognition program and, every year, becomes more competitive, drawing more than 2,000 entries from all over the world and showcasing more than 130 designs which will also be published in the July/August issue of I.D. magazine.
The event drew a crowd of designers and non-designers, alike, and featured a popular tequila tasting from liquor sponsor Tequila Don Julio. Among the objects recognized in each of eight categories—consumer products, graphics, packaging, environments, furniture, equipment, concepts and interactive—”best of” work from 2007 includes Apple’s iPhone, Revlon’s Polish Prep Nail Smoother and Puma’s PT3 Ultramagnetic Collection, a limited edition table-tennis paddle set.
In addition to recognizing design excellence, the review also seeks to highlight the work of designers who are breaking new ground. The exhibition features a majority of the winning products, with some that are not fabricated represented creatively by exhibition designers Paul Carlos and Urshula Barbour of Pure+Applied. Among the works on view is the new New York City Condom Dispenser by industrial designer Yves Béhar of Fuseproject. Another is the Datum Line, an innovative conceptual project that would illustrate the impact of melting polar ice sheets on the world’s sea levels. Bikedispenser, from Dutch studio Springtime, is a fully automated bicycle rental station.
A panel discussion with several of the designers featured in the exhibition will take place in September.
A slideshow of selected winners can be viewed here. Location and hours: Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design, 66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street, New York (gallery hours: M-F, 10 AM-8 PM; S-S, Noon-6 PM) newschool.edu/johnsondesigncenter newschool.edu/pressroom/emails/idreview.pdf