Golden Pin Design Award and Golden Pin Concept Design Award 2019 finalists

The annual Golden Pin Design Award is the longest-running international design award that celebrates products or projects expressly created for Chinese-speaking communities, offering entrants an unprecedented opportunity to prove their prowess in the world’s largest market.
The Golden Pin Design Award Group is comprised of two international awards — the Golden Pin Design Award, the Golden Pin Concept Design Award — and the Young Pin Design Award for students in Taiwan. The Golden Pin Design Award Group is executed by the Taiwan Design Center and organized by the Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs.
This year, like every year, there was a large pool of applicants to choose from, offering an overview of new trends in the Chinese-speaking design market. The jury judged 624 Design Mark winners to narrow down a shortlist of finalists for Best Design. The projects encompassed product design, communication design, spatial design, and integration design. In addition to competing for the coveted Best Design trophy, the finalists – 64 in the Golden Pin Design Award and 7 in the Golden Pin Concept Design Award from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Germany can also be nominated for Special Awards championing circular design and social design.
The pursuit of sustainability is a key feature of the shortlisted projects. In the Product Design category, Rice Husk by Dot Design Co. is a collection of three beach toys made from rice husks, which makes them 100% biodegradable and eco-friendly. The rice husks are collected from local farmers and combined with natural starch to produce the raw material, which can be recycled up to 5 times before disposal. makesure by Shenzhen Lesure Technology Co. is, instead, a user-friendly, stylish cat litter box, simple for cat owners to clean, and subtle in appearance. BranD magazine in the Communication Design category has been inspiring graphic designers worldwide since 2012 by exploring brand design and collecting together creative ideas from all around the world in one place. It has been recommended by the Red Dot and iF Design Awards. 
The mixed bag of shortlisted finalists in the Spatial Design category includes Hong Kong House by LAAB Architects, an art gallery and artist residence as part of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale. Its architecture is designed to respectfully integrate with this peaceful, rural neighbourhood. LIGHT-DRIVING in the Integration Design (Taiwan) section, is an installation from the Hsinchu City Glass Art & Design Festival. It introduces a new chapter in the discourse of traditional craft, lifestyle, and design. InFormat Design Curating worked with local glass factories to create a space modelled on circular economy and local aesthetics. Another finalist in the Integration Design category is NIBUNNO by sselectlab, composed of exhibition space, accommodation space, and a design office. NIBUNNO aims to promote Taiwanese design and Taiwan-Japan design exchange. Located in Tokyo, this liveable gallery is imagined as a space where people can come into contact with the latest Taiwanese design trends.
We’ll find out the winners of each category in a couple of months and in the meantime, we’ll be exploring some of these shortlisted projects. Projects that contemplate the environment, while also addressing diversity and equality, ideas that prioritise the use of natural materials and that incorporate local culture in their design thinking.

Christiane Bürklein

Golden Pin Design Award and Golden Pin Concept Design Award 2019
Award ceremony 5 December 2019
Images: see captions
Find out more: http://www.goldenpin.org.tw/en/