San Francisco, United States, 22-06-2021 -  The 15^th edition annual San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), the premier gathering of the world’s most active design community, today announced winners of the 2021 DESIGN AWARDS. This year’s theme, “POWER” was met by award winners from leading design firms, in-house teams, and creative individuals, who were honored VIRTUALLY at the San Francisco Design Week Awards.

Power is everywhere. It's local and global, personal and public, selfish and selfless. There is power in the food we eat, the music we make, and the ideas we share. Power is 'a seat at the table', a movement, a path forward, and a new beginning.

SFDW invites the design community to reconsider the way we think about power - and how, by questioning existing institutions, we can use our collective abilities to help distribute and delegate power with equitable intentions.

The 2021 San Francisco Design Week Awards is an international design competition seeking to encourage thought leadership by supporting designers whose works contribute towards a positive future for society. The Design Awards celebrates and recognizes exemplary work in all fields of design, including architecture, interiors, industrial design, communications, and user experience.

Twenty-five winning projects and seven honorable mentions were selected by a jury comprised of distinguished professionals who reviewed submissions from an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants from all over the world including the United Kingdom, France, South Pacific, and the USA.

“We are extremely excited to announce the 2021 San Francisco Design Week Awards,” says SFDW Executive Director Dawn Zidonis. “The quality of the many entries we received was exceptional, exceeding expectations in answering our theme POWER’ with inspiration and innovation. Congratulations to this year’s outstanding and diverse winners.”

San Francisco Design Week 2021 Award Winners and Honorable Mentions were conceived by designers from UK, France, South Pacific, and the USA, and selected from a pool of applicants in the following categories: Architecture, Civic Design, Communication Design, Data, FinTech, Future of Foods, Health and Wellness, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Social Impact, Student Category, Systems Design, Travel & Hospitality, Urban Mobility, User Experience, VR/AR/XR, and Wild Card.

The 2021 Innovation Design Awards are juried by top industry professionals.

“This year, we as designers and design leaders are revisiting and adapting our mission to better reflect the world around us,” says SFDW Executive Director Dawn Zidonis. “By sharing resources, amplifying marginalized voices, and celebrating our differences, we’re reinventing and redistributing the power we hold, giving access to ideas born here in the Bay Area region. We stand with solidarity against white supremacy, racism, police brutality, and injustice. We are designers, masters of communication and meaning, and can use our voices to create change. With great power comes great possibilities.”

Learn more about this year's theme at SF Design Week blog post.

2021 Award Winners

Architecture
Aidlin Darling Design (US)
Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse

Architecture
Connect Homes (US)
Mar Vista Connect 11

Architecture
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (US)
Mighty House

Civic Design
City and County of San Francisco (US)
COVID Emergency Response Communications

Communication Design
CoLab (US)
Zip

Data
Cisco (US)
Accessible Colors for Data Visualization

FinTech
Pilot (US)
Pilot Accounting Semantic Model and Decision Engine

Future of Foods
Gould Evans (US)
Agricultural Institute of Marin - The Center for Food and Agriculture

Health and Wellness
Samsung Research America (US)
My Heart Lab

Health and Wellness
Samsung Research America (US)
My Lung Health

Industrial Design
Otelier (US)
Eat-Work Table

Interior Design
Form + Field (US)
Sweet July

Interior Design
Fennie + Mehl Architects (US)
OLLY Headquarters

Social Impact
Connect Homes (US)
The Connect Shelters System

Social Impact
Prana (US)
Prana: Multi-Patient Ventilator Splitter

Social Impact
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (US)
Leimert Park Community Fridge

Student Category
Milu (US)
Senior's Wellbeing: Insight Through Storytelling and Ethical AI

Student Category
Maryland Institute College of the Arts (US)
Dayz: The Future of a Day

Travel & Hospitality
Olivier Turon Design (US)
Le Colibri

Systems Design
Intuitive Surgical (US)
Intuitive Design System

Urban Mobility
REE Automotive (US)
REE's Next Generation EV Platforms

User Experience
Blink (US)
Special Olympics

User Experience
Oracle (US)
Reimagine: The Enterprise User Experience

VR/AR/XR
BroadAR, Inc. (US)
Smell Revived

Wild Card
University of California Berkeley (US)
Euphemia

2021 Honorable Mentions

Architecture
Connect Homes (US)
Santa Ynez Connect 4

Architecture
Gould Evans (US)
Timber Town: for San Francisco, by San Francisco

Architecture
Gustave Carlson Design (US)
Canyon House

Industrial Design
Ammunition (US)
Ammunition x Gantri

Interior Design
Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects (US)
Softie

Social Impact
California College of the Arts (US)
On-Boarding Kit for Pediatric Cancer Patient

Student Category
California College of the Arts (US)
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Design Awards Jury & Criteria

Each winning project displayed the following characteristics:
 
Impact — Design that represents a substantial shift in the way a particular process is created, executed, perceived, or experienced.
 
Singularity — Products and ideas that go above and beyond contemporaneous work being done within distinct fields of design.
 
Inclusiveness — Work that empowers those previously underrepresented in the design community and emboldens social mobility at all levels.
 
Social Responsibility — Design that offers solutions for people with needlessly insurmountable barriers to entry in all walks of life.
 
Ease of Use — Design that can be easily understood and applied by the end-user.
 
Visual Appeal — Projects, ideas, and processes that not only solve problems but do so with aesthetics that accentuate and elevate the experience from start to finish.
 
Feasibility — Design that can be sensibly funded, implemented, and embraced.

The SFDW 2021 Design Awards esteemed jury comprised:
 
Anisha Jian, Product Design Director, CRUISE
Mauro Rego, Design Lead, Google AI, GOOGLE
Sean Mclean-Bergel, Interior Designer, MCCLEAN BERGEL
Andre Pennycooke, Director of Product Design, VARO
Janet Tam, Co-Founder, and Principal, NOLL&TAM
Mengyuan Tu, Product, RUN THE WORLD
Heather Bybee, Director of Packaging, AMMUNITION
Hugo Eccles, Creative Director, SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE

Awards identity designed by Mucho.
 
The 2021 winners’ entries are displayed prominently and permanently online at San Francisco Design Week.

About San Francisco Design Week
The Future Started Here:
Launched in 2006, San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is an essential week-long regional festival that showcases the unique intersection of ideas, design, business & entrepreneurism that makes the Bay Area the birthplace of the future.
 
Now a global phenomenon, San Francisco’s international success is born from historically free-spirited entrepreneurialism, coupled with the imaginative vision of contemporary design and state-of-the-art technology. Pioneers of new ways of looking at the world, nimble Bay Area start-ups are now among the world’s most influential design-led companies, producing products, services, and experiences that profoundly influence the daily lives of billions of people globally.

Through approximately 150 events, SFDW celebrates this spirit of newness by providing approximately 60,000 attendees unique access to conversations and virtual tours with the designers who are shaping the future — from architecture to fashion, product design to digital services, and everything in between. 
 
San Francisco Design Week is a nonprofit organization led by a team of advisors and a core committee that represents the diversity of design disciplines in the Bay Area. SFDW is organized by AIGA San Francisco, the professional association for design in partnership with IDSA, Center for Architecture + Design, AIA San Francisco, SFFAMA, SEGD, SDN, IXDA, local consulates, design universities, neighborhood associations, and museums. 

2021 San Francisco Design Week theme, identity, and the campaign have been created in collaboration with design firm Landscape. Landscape is a boutique brand strategy and design studio shaping structure and surface in service of social good.

2021 Major sponsors include Adobe, Autodesk, Butchershop, Connecta, Fort Point Beer Co., InVision, Landscape, Manual, Mauk Design, Paypal, PCH, Stir, The Creative Group, Tramo, Umber, VISA.

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San Francisco Design Week® is a registered trademark of AIGA|SF. © 2021 AIGA|SF. All rights reserved.