Late last month, the BlackBerry Passport proved its design excellence in the most important competition for product design, Red Dot Product Design 2015. The Red Dot: Best of the Best is awarded for innovative design and is the highest individual award in the Red Dot Award: Product Design category. Only the truly outstanding products in a category receive this award – in 2015, only 81 products from 31 categories were given the sought-after seal of quality.
Professor Dr. Peter Zec, Founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award:
“For 60 years, the most-respected design experts have been convening every year in Essen to seek out the best designs. This year we had a record number of almost 5,000 entries – a huge amount of work for our jury members, who assessed each individual product, and a special value of the distinction due to the high standard. The laureates of the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2015 have demonstrated exceptionally high achievements and have thus been deservedly successful in the world’s largest design competition.”
Following The Red Dot Gala in Essen, Germany on June 29, 2015 will be a four-week special exhibition, “Design on Stage”. Visitors will experience the current top achievements with a tactile hands-on exhibition, and design enthusiasts can explore the trends in international product design and see for themselves the excellent quality of the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry 10.3 operating system. Following the “Design on Stage” exhibition, the BlackBerry Passport will be included in the Red Dot Design Museum’s permanent exhibition.
“The BlackBerry Design Team is honored to accept the prestigious Red Dot: Best of the Best Product Design Award for the BlackBerry Passport,” said Alison Phillips, Managing Director, Head of Industrial Design at BlackBerry. “The value of design comes through when technology and new ideas can be turned into meaningful products that users connect with. This innovative product was a collaboration of many teams coming together to deliver a new design icon for BlackBerry.”
This isn’t the first time the BlackBerry Design team has won a Red Dot award. In 2013 the BlackBerry Z10 won a Red Dot award and in 2014 the BlackBerry Q10, Z30, and Q5 smartphones also were honored with Red Dot awards. But this is the first time BlackBerry has won in the “Best of the Best” category. Porsche Design won in this category in 2013 for Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone.
The design community is taking notice, with the BlackBerry Passport landing an IF design award earlier this year. It was also featured in the short film series, The Guild Series, which takes you through an inside look at the creative process of some of the minds responsible for design elements in their industries.
Huge congratulations to the BlackBerry Design team and everyone who worked on the BlackBerry Passport!
You can hear directly from the BlackBerry Design team in this blog post discussing their goals, inspirations and challenges when creating the BlackBerry Passport.
“For 60 years, the most-respected design experts have been convening every year in Essen to seek out the best designs. This year we had a record number of almost 5,000 entries – a huge amount of work for our jury members, who assessed each individual product, and a special value of the distinction due to the high standard. The laureates of the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2015 have demonstrated exceptionally high achievements and have thus been deservedly successful in the world’s largest design competition.”
This isn’t the first time the BlackBerry Design team has won a Red Dot award. In 2013 the BlackBerry Z10 won a Red Dot award and in 2014 the BlackBerry Q10, Z30, and Q5 smartphones also were honored with Red Dot awards. But this is the first time BlackBerry has won in the “Best of the Best” category. Porsche Design won in this category in 2013 for Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone.