NEW YORK – Jan. 15, 2019 – Hundreds of designers from top brands including Philips, Google, IBM, HP, Honeywell Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Fellowes, Fitbit, Nest, SOM and the world’s leading design schools went head to head in the highly competitive 2018 Spark Design Awards.

Congratulations to fourth-year Industrial Design Student, Taewan "Trey" Kim, who received a Silver Award in the Product Design Cocept category for his Indoor Smokeless Charcoal Grill. 

Juries took place at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco in June and November and at Hong Kong Polytechnic in December, with over 40 jurors. The judges worked in a multi-disciplinary process with experts from each design discipline guiding discussions.”This technique leads to a spirited debated and thorough analysis of each entry,” stated organizer and CEO Peter Kuchnicki, “Our jury days are the most exciting and challenging of the competition year and very interesting!”

Along with many highly qualified finalists, the winners are featured at the Spark Galleries and exhibited to thousands of visitors at international design fairs and conferences.

The Winners Celebration audience was entertained and enlightened by entrepreneur and CleanTech pioneer, Fred Walti, CEO, Network For Global Innovation. His main thesis: design is a critical component of the CleanTech movement towards sustainable infrastructure.

Adding to the excitement at the Celebration, renowned design thinker Arnold Wasserman announced this year’s AllSpark Awards—3 winners that exemplify the core Spark Mission. The judges chose the SEED vaccine injector by Mir Yoon, Konkuk University; the Google Pixel Earbuds and the Chengdu Aeropolis by SOM.

“We invite everyone who is interested in cutting-edge design solutions to real problems to visit Sparkawards,” said Spark Director Clark Kellogg, “and we welcome their own contributions to better our world.”

About the Spark Awards

The Spark mission is to promote better living through better design. Spark Awards are tri-annual affairs, with different design categories judged in June and November in San Francisco and December in Hong Kong. Sponsors include Autodesk and HP. Both design professionals and students actively participate throughout the year, with the San Francisco State University IDSA Chapter of particular help. Learn more about the Spark organization and mission at the landing page at www.sparkawards.com.