oni making tough decisions
2008/OCT/15 IF AWARDS CHINA
JUDGMENT DAY
ONI'S SUPER SELECTION
Six judges, 408 entries from 14 countries, 132 awarded designs and ten brilliant "TOP selection award" winners – we're talking about the iF design awards China 2008. oni was one of the judges, meaning he had the luckiest day of his life so far (not counting the day he got his Chinese driving license), being able to pick and choose design winners all day long. Not that he is a very judgmental person – he just enjoys having some power. A power he was happy to share, of course: "We had very good group dynamics and a good mix of jury members with different backgrounds and from various Asian countries", says oni who with his German soul was the only non-Asian jury member.
iF design award has a 55 year history in Germany while the Chinese version is running since six years. Frank Zierenberg from iF who every year makes several trips from his home country Germany to organize the awards in China (well, Frank is a man who knows when enough is enough, and he has now handed over the responsibility for the China awards to colleagues at iF) has seen a clear improvement in design quality since the start. Several Chinese designs were highly appreciated by the jury and one all-Chinese entry made it to the top ten selection together with items from big multinational players.
six members of the jury / oni in action / awarded products
The selection of winning products took place at 1933 Old Millfun, a wonderfully mysterious venue that used to be a slaughterhouse. It was cleaned up and transformed into a creative hub and has hosted a Shanghai pecha kucha night as well as the Shanghai Creative Industries Week and several big brand events.
ADDICTIVE TRACKING ACTIVITIES
oni & zou got to know Frank during the award process and we think he is the coolest German geek we have met. He introduced us to the GPS community and basically forced us to buy a GPS device in order to find the location of the geocache he hid for us in downtown Shanghai. We are also GPS addicts now, Frank. And thanks to you, everyone can keep track of our location.
print version
