The ‘design team of the year’ award goes to Tupperware

The most famous burp in design history and top product quality for over 60 years: Tupperware has been awarded the highest honorary distinction in the design world – the “red dot: design team of the year 2009”. Tupperware’s design team, lead by Vice President of Global Design, Susan Perkins, has consistently created best-in-class, innovative products which are showcased around the world. With the title “red dot: design team of the year” the red dot annually pays tribute to a design team that has distinguished itself through continuously innovative design and has thus set new standards. Previous winners of the ‘design team of the year’ title include the teams of Bose, BMW, LG Electronics, adidas, Pininfarina, Nokia, Apple, Siemens and frogdesign. The festive awards presentation of the “red dot award: product design 2009” including the tribute to the Tupperware design team will take place on 29 June 2009 in the Essen opera house, the Aalto-Theater.

The Tupperware World Wide Design Team is the “red dot: design team of the year 2009”. For more than 60 years, the company has pursued a unique design philosophy, which has been embraced all across the globe. Tupperware is universally recognisable, with 90 per cent brand awareness. The simple, colourful products, accompanied by the signature seals, have become characteristic of the Tupperware brand and follow a similar iconographic style since company founder Earl Silas Tupper created the first designs in the 1950s. Appreciated as a universal companion, the “Wonder Bowl” and all following ranges as functional utensils have revolutionised daily routines – the concept is as simple as it is ingenious; its design has almost unparalleled innovative potential. Tupperware, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is an international direct sales company and is sold in more than 100 countries.

“For decades, undeterred by all the developments in design history, Tupperware has been developing consistently functional products with optimal practical value using simple but nevertheless ingenious, and definitely distinctive design,” says Professor Dr. Peter Zec, initiator of the red dot design award and senator of the international umbrella organisation of design, Icsid, explaining the selection of the design team of the year. “With the typical Tupperware design, the company has managed to give ingenious ideas an appropriate form for many years. Tupperware’s success story is an example of continuous innovative potential, which has been shaping our daily lives for generations. For this achievement we are honouring the Tupperware World Wide Design Team with the highest distinction that exists in the design world.”

The gala event:

the awards presentation on 29 June 2009, 6:00 p.m.
On 29 June 2009, Susan Perkins and representatives of the Tupperware World Wide Design Team will come to Essen to receive the “Radius” touring cup as a symbol of the “red dot: design team of the year” award on behalf of the whole Tupperware design team. The “Radius” will be passed on by Michael Laude, chief designer of the previous year’s winner, the Bose Corporate Design Center.

The festive awards presentation of the “red dot award: product design 2009” will take place in the special ambience of the Essen opera house, the Aalto-Theater, with more than 1,200 guests from the fields of design, business, media, politics and culture. At the ensuing Designers’ Night in the red dot design museum, award-winners and guests will celebrate together into the early hours.

The special exhibition

in the red dot design museum
Under the title “Tupperware – sophisticated simplicity advanced through engineering”, the design team of the year will present itself with its own exhibition in the red dot design museum on the premises of the world cultural heritage site ‘Zeche Zollverein’ from 30 June to 26 July 2009. Parallel to that, all award-winning products of the “red dot award: product design” competition will be on display in the special exhibition “Design on stage – winners red dot award: product design 2009” in the museum’s Schürerhalle (‘Stoker’s Hall’).

The red dot design award
With approximately 11,000 entries from more than 60 nations in its disciplines “red dot award: product design”, “red dot award: communication design” and “red dot award: design concept”, the red dot design award is one of the leading and largest design competitions worldwide. Since 1955, the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen has annually selected excellent design quality and officially honoured it in an exhibition.

The publication
The book documenting the competition, the “red dot design yearbook 2009/2010”, will be released in two volumes on 29 June 2009.

The „Hall of Fame“

These are the award-winning design teams of the past years:

Press contact:

Sabine Angelkorte

Communications Manager

Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen

Tel.: +49 201 30 10 4-33

E-Mail: angelkorte(at)red-dot-award.com

www.red-dot.de/press

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Press release

Fotos zum red dot: design team of the year