Highly Prized

The Design Intelligence Award (DIA) is much coveted not only in its home country of China but increasingly across the world. As international media partner, POOL had a ringside seat of the recently held celebrations…

The Design Intelligence Award (DIA) is a contemporary, innovative design platform established in China in 2015 for the evaluation, promotion and collaboration of industrial design. Since its establishment an expert tank with over 300 industry experts from 26 countries and four continents has been set up. The DIA holds a worldwide interdisciplinary competition encompassing art, technology and commerce that serves as a catalyst for the transformation of original ideas into materialized profit and the actualization of future innovation. Though still a relatively new award, it draws a large number of global designers keen on adding the recognition to their profiles.

The awards process

For the preliminary evaluation phase, entries are accepted either by public registration or expert nomination. Reviewed and approved by the DIA committee, the nominated works go straight into the final round. The Experts Committee of DIA consists of design masters and cross-discipline experts from all over the world, and the nomination experts and evaluation experts work independently of each other. The evaluation is based on factors such as Culture and Goodwill; Technology and Esthetics; Innovation and Wisdom; Commerce and Promotion; and Comprehension and Eco-awareness.

This year the DIA received 7,721 pieces of work from 41 countries and regions, in categories ranging from cultural products and daily necessities to industrial equipment and high-edge technologies. Of these 7,436 entries were from public registration, with 285 nominated by experts from different countries. Forty-two of these, from 13 countries and regions, competed for the final awards and a total prize pool of 6.5 million yuan (US$1.03 million).

Three prizes were granted this year: The Design Excellence Award, Design Yiwu Award, and Design Shining Award.