Winners of the DesignEuropa Awards announced

Two exceptional designs have been honored in the fourth edition of the DesignEuropa Awards held at the Axica Convention Center in Berlin. RemigoOne, the electric outboard motor created by Slovenian designer Ajda Bertok and engineered in line with marine innovation and sustainability principles, has won the Small and Emerging Companies Award, writes Federico Grandesso.

The Industry Award went to the Full Automatic Espresso Coffee Machine, designed by Vittorio Bertazzoni, Matteo Bazzicalupo and Raffaella Mangiarotti for Smeg. This compact machine allows for the professional preparation of coffee in a simple and intuitive way. During the Awards ceremony, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Swedish designer Maria Benktzon. A pioneer of inclusive and ergonomic design and the first woman to receive this award, Benktzon has dedicated her career to helping others through design, in collaboration with Sven-Eric Juhlin.

Many will remember her best for the non-drip coffee pot she created for SAS. The DesignEuropa Awards, organised by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), acknowledge outstanding designs that are protected as registered Community designs (RCDs), as well as influential figures in the field. There are three award categories: Small and Emerging Companies, Industry, and Lifetime Achievement. The Lifetime Achievement category is reserved for designers with a significant body of work, developed over the course of a career, who have had an impact on the field of design.

The chairwoman of the jury, French designer Isabelle Vérilhac, former president of the Bureau of European Design Associations (BEDA), said: "We received nearly 700 excellent applications representing a wide range of industries from all over the EU. Consequently, selecting a winner was a very challenging task. The winners of this edition exemplify great design-thinking, sustainability and environmental responsibility on European design. The winning projects serve as perfect examples of aesthetics, emotion, functionalism, circularity and inclusion in design. They also demonstrate how design is a crucial business asset for innovative companies, both large and small, across Europe."

EUIPO Executive Director Christian Archambeau declared: "The DesignEuropa Awards showcase European creativity, innovation and ingenuity at its best. Design is at the heart of Europe and we have two excellent winners who demonstrate the power of design. Europe’s designers and the design industry, including SMEs, contribute to economic, social, cultural and environmental development. Our Lifetime Achievement winner, Maria Benktzon, is a champion of innovative and inclusive design for everyday objects, and her inspiring creations have been featured in some of the world’s largest museums."

Over the past two decades, the protection of designs has been a game-changer for businesses. Design-intensive industries create 26.8 million direct jobs in the EU and contribute 15.5% of the EU’s total GDP. The EUIPO currently registers over 100 000 designs a year, and has received over 1.6 million RCDs since April 2003, when it started managing this intellectual property right. Germany is the leading country protecting designs at EU level, with more than 347 000 designs in total, followed by Italy with 202 000. In terms of gender representation, a recent EUIPO report revealed that only 26% of the designs registered by EU-based owners in 2021 included a woman designer, below the levels of South Korea, China and the US. The DesignEuropa Awards Jury, composed of well-respected professionals from the fields of design, academia, business and intellectual property, chose the two winning designs from a list of 8 finalists announced in June.

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