Top Designs

The shortlist for the Designer of the Year 2002 was announced this week. The most surprising nominee was Rockstar Games for their Playstation 2 title, Grand Theft Auto - Vice City.

Despite being criticised for it’s x-rated content, the team of jurors, including Paul Smith, voted it one of the best design works of last year.

The other nominees were Jonathan Ive for the iMac, Solange Azagury-Partridge (jewelry designer at Boucheron) and Tord Boontje for his Swarovski chandeliers.

Ah well, maybe next year...

Posted 7 years, 2 months ago

Unlucky. I take it Xlab was excluded on some technicality? ;)

BTW, whose awards are these? Is there a website for them?

mal · www · 7 years, 2 months ago

Yeah, probably should’ve qualified this.

The awards are organised by the Design Museum in London. Their <a href="http://www.designmuseum.org">website</a> not being very good, there is not much to link to, though I did find this <a href="http://www.hiddenart.com/news.asp?ar_id=408">article</a> on hiddenart.com.

The jury consists of Sir Paul Smith, industrial designer Marc Newson, Paola Antonelli of the Museum of Modern Art New York and design historian Emily King, and is chaired by Alice Rawsthorn, director of the Design Museum

Phil · www · 7 years, 2 months ago

Vice City plopped onto my doormat on Saturday morning and after far too long playing it, I have to admit that I, too, am surprised by its nomination for the design award. Sure, it’s a great game, but there are <strong>loads</strong> of great games out there.

And I’m guessing they only looked at things from a very superficial viewpoint. In less than an hour of playing, I’d seen numerous graphics glitches, shocking collision detection and even a crash (well, a deadlock if we’re gonna get technical). I’ve certainly seen better.

mal · www · 7 years, 2 months ago

Aye. It’s certainly sold well but is it better designed than Ico, Rez, Metroid Prime or Halo?

Also, found the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2642081.stm">original article</a> on the BBC website.

Phil · www · 7 years, 2 months ago

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My name is Phil Lindsay, a web guy from Scotland, now living in Newcastle upon Tyne in England. I also run a web design company called Presence. You can email me at phil@xlab.co.uk, read more ramblings on my Twitter stream and view my photos on Flickr. You can grab the RSS feed for this weblog here.