ASIA-PACIFIC – SINGAPORE, APRIL 2011 – The 2011 President’s Design Award, Singapore’s highest design accolade, is open for nominations until May 24, 2011. Into its sixth year, the President’s Design Award has honored 18 designers and 37 designs across different design disciplines and has brought the designers prestige and recognition, in addition to increased business leads and greater opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations.
“The award has helped to heighten our profile and increase our recognition by design clients in Singapore and internationally. The number of companies in the region who have come knocking on our doors has increased. We now have projects in Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. We have also seen an increase in the number of residential and hospitality companies from Sri Lanka, China and Malaysia expressing interest to work with us,” remarked Koichiro Ikebuchi, director of Atelier Ikebuchi and recipient of the Designer of the Year award in 2009.
For Gabriel Tan of OutOfStock, a design quartet that received the Design of the Year award in 2010 for Black Forest Table, the award has inspired them to explore cross-disciplinary, cross-border, and cross-industry collaborations. He explained: “As designers, the need to be constantly inspired forms the basis of our livelihood – the President’s Design Award has widened our creative horizons to new ideas and possibilities for collaboration. In recent months, we have seen keen interest from like-minded designers from different disciplines, especially in the field of architecture and graphic design, to work together.”
On the call for nominations, Robert Tomlin, chairman of the President’s Design Award Steering Committee and the DesignSingapore Council, said: "The President’s Design Award showcases the design capability of Singapore’s best and sets the highest standards of design excellence. I encourage everyone to nominate good designs deserving of this recognition and contribute to developing Singapore as a global city for design.”
The President’s Design Award is conferred by the President of the Republic of Singapore and is jointly administered by the DesignSingapore Council, a division within the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development
For more information on the President’s Design Award nomination categories and eligibility, please visit www.designsingapore.org/pda.
