Student Mathias Hintermann’s Aiguille short track speed skater headgear won a Spark! Award.

With designs ranging from a portable desk for low-income children in India to lighting inspired by the beauty found in Japanese metal craft, Art Center students and alumni brought home several awards last week from the 2013 Spark International Design Awards.

Students and professionals from more than 27 countries across the globe competed in the categories of Experience Design, Product Design, Spaces Design, Transport Design, Communication Design, App Design and Concept Design, with awards ranging from Bronze Awards to the highest award, the Spark! Award.

In the Student Concept Design category, Art Center students won three Spark! awards:

• Current Product Design student Kimberly Chow for Launchpad Study Kit, a portable desk for low-income children in India, created as part of Designmatters‘ Living Home India project;
• Current Product Design student Shingo Mamiya, recent Environmental Design graduate May Liu, and Taizo Suzuki, a student studying craft metal at Tama Art Univeristy in Tokyo, for AHA Moment, a suite of glassware, tableware and lighting inspired by the accidental beauty found in Japanese metal craft, part of a collaboration between Art Center and Tama Art Univeristy;
• Current Product Design student Mathias Hintermann for Aiguille, a short track speed skater headgear that increases safety, comfort and aerodynamics.

Current student Shingo Mayima and recent alumna May Liu, along with Tama Art University’s Taizo Suzuki, won a Spark! award in the Student Concept category for AHA Moment.

Other student winners included:

• Hintermann, who also won a Spark! Award in the Transport Design category for his Aiguille design;
• Recent Product Design graduate JJ Hwang, who won a Gold Award in the Transport Design category for BEEHIVE, a concept for a modular agricultural vehicle for India that can hold more than 10 passengers and break down into a trolley and two walking tractors;
• Current students Damon Casarez and Rhombie Sandoval (both Photography and Imaging), Thomas Banuelos (Film) and recent Advertising alumnus Alex Cheng won a Bronze Award in the Concept Design category for Designmatters’ “Where’s Daryl?” project, an educational toolkit for at-risk middle school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District that warns of the consequences of playing with guns.

Student Kimberly Chow’s Launchpad Study Kit won a Spark! Award in the Student Concept category.

Art Center was also well represented in the professional categories, with work by alumni that ranged from rebranding projects to a high-tech re-imagining of how we open doors bringing home several awards. Winners included:

• Product Design alumnus Yves Behar and his fuseproject design firm won a Product Design Spark! Award for his wireless (and keyless!) AUGUST Smart Lock door entry system and an App Design Gold Award for the device’s accompanying smartphone app.
• The Mini Jambox, the latest and most compact iteration of Jawbone’s iconic wireless speaker designed by Behar’s fuseproject also won a Gold Award in the Product Design category.
• The fuseproject-designed GAME GOLF app, which uses positional technology, motion sensors and near field communication to help golfers view and socialize their game, won a Gold Award in the App Design category.
• Behar and fuseproject also took home two Bronze Awards, one in the App Design category for an interface that works with the open-source OUYA gaming console, and another in the Product Design category for SodaStream SOURCE, an elegant kitchen appliance that transforms tap water into flavored carbonated beverages.
• In the Communication Design category, Graphic Design alumnus Earl Gee and his Gee + Chung Design studio won a Bronze Award for their branding of Art Center’s DOT Launch entrepreneurial initiative, as well as a Silver Award for the DOT Launch logo which anchors the rebranding project and incorporates both a soaring rocket and a pencil point into the College’s iconic “dot” logo.
• Also in the Communication Design category, Advertising alumnus and Trustee Kit Hinrichs and his Studio Hinrichs firm took home a Spark! Award for his AlphaChrome Cards, an homage to large letter alphabet postcards from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a Silver Award for Print &, a promotional brochure for Sappi Fine Paper that illustrates how high-end printing can work in conjunction with technology.

The Spark Awards promote better living through better design. Winning designs are chosen based on whether or not their design “sparks” by changing humanity or helping the environment in some way. To learn more, visit the Spark Awards’ website.