Red Dot Award: Product Design

Winners in the Red Dot Design Museum

Discover the winning products for 2021 in the Red Dot Design Museum Essen! The exhibitions “Milestones in Contemporary Design” and “Design on Stage” provide a comprehensive overview of current trends and developments in product design.

Vito Oražem, Vice President of Red Dot, provides insights into the current special exhibitions “Milestones in Contemporary Design” and “Design on Stage”

Experience the winning products first hand

From the world’s first digital saxophone to particularly attractive radiators or bionic hand prostheses, visitors to the Red Dot Design Museum Essen can experience first hand the products that won a distinction in the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2021. The exhibition “Milestones in Contemporary Design 2021–2022” features the Red Dot: Best of the Best recipients. All of the products meet the four qualities of good design: function, use, seduction and responsibility.

The products that won a Red Dot are presented as part of the special exhibition “Design on Stage 2021–2022”. Alongside the design principles “form follows function” and “form follows emotion”, it focuses on new tasks of design in the era of digitalisation. Among others, these include smart products and interfaces. You can also look forward to a special presentation of Apple products, the only one of its kind in any museum around the world. The exhibitions will run until 31 May 2022.

This year’s recipient of the honorary title “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year”, Studio F. A. Porsche, is guest at the Red Dot Design Museum with the exhibition “Form Equals Function”. At the heart of the exhibition stands a scaled-down model of the historic Porsche 911, which already embodies all the design principles to which the studio is still committed today. Using current products including headphones, an e-bike, watches, sunglasses and a washing machine, the exhibition also demonstrates that these principles have lost none of their relevance and can also be applied to different product groups.

The Red Dot Design Museum Essen

Over roughly 4,000 sqm and extending across five floors, the Red Dot Design Museum Essen showcases the state of the art in design, ranging from robots to coffee machines and furniture to medical technology. Located in the former boiler house of the UNESCO world heritage site Zeche Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, the museum combines contemporary product culture with historical industrial architecture. This special atmosphere elevates everyday objects to a whole new level.