Winning designs reap rewards

Dyson Dual Cyclone DC02 Cylinder

There’s no doubting James Dyson’s commitment to design. A designer himself, he’s put creativity at the centre of his vacuum cleaner company Dyson Appliances and it permeates everything the company does. As for charisma, he’s got it by the bag-load and he’s not shy to stand up for what he believes in, as his appearance on just about every available conference platform this season has shown.

But when one of the industry’s most prominent ambassadors shows that design can mean big business, as Dyson has by winning top prize in the Design Business Association’s Design Effectiveness Awards, the message is irrefutable.

Sucking up this year’s consumer product award and the grand prix, Dyson’s in-house- designed DC02 is the first bagless cylinder cleaner to be produced and incorporates ten patented innovations. These are as well as Dyson’s famed “cyclonic technology” which was pioneered in his earlier vacuum cleaners and is claimed to give better suction than more conventional cleaners. The cylinder model was praised by former Storehouse chairman Ian Hay Davison, who led the awards jury, for its “ingenuity, inventiveness and the fact that design permeates every aspect of the product, from manufacturing to packaging”.

As for commercial performance, the DC02 has shot to second place in the vacuum cleaner market, behind the upright Dyson DC01, since it was launched in March 1995. The company recouped capital costs for its production within four months of the launch and expanded its staff to meet increased demand within the UK, across Europe and in Australia. Its success has contributed significantly to Dyson Appliances’ turnover, which has shot from 3m in 1993 – the company’s first year – to a projected 100m this year.

No wonder Dyson is cleaning up on the awards front.

BT Phone Book by Pillar Information Design

The world could reap the benefits of 706 818 extra copies of Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace thanks to the savings in paper and ink made by Pillar Information Design’s revamp of the BT Phone Book. Add to this the 91 150 soft drinks cans the authors of the design claim could be made from the aluminium saved by using 1302 fewer printing plates for the slimline book, and you’re looking at an environmental winner.

This was the reckoning of the effectiveness awards judges, who voted Pillar’s design top of the information design entries and awarded it the coveted environmental trophy. Pillar achieved a 13 per cent reduction in pages in the preface to the book which provides a framework for all BT phone directories in the UK. This resulted in cost savings for BT of 750 000 within 18 months.

Awards jury chairman Ian Hay Davison succinctly points up the “national significance” of the project. Philippa Butters, senior design manager at BT, has more to say. According to her, the result “exemplifies the power of information design to improve the accessibility of information and encourages positive brand perception while ensuring a responsible environmental attitude to the production process”. Quite.

One question remains. Do we need 91 150 more soft drink cans?

How it was done

The DBA Design Effectiveness Awards were set up in 1989 to show how design can enhance commercial performance. Joint submissions from designers and their clients are considered in a two-stage process, with two separate juries comprising largely non-design judges. Former Storehouse chairman Ian Hay Davison chaired the second jury.

This year the awards were organised jointly by the Design Business Association and Design Week’s sister paper Marketing Week. Winners in each category were awarded a two-part trophy – one half to be kept by the designer, the other by the client – designed by Seymour

Powell (First Sight, DW 18 October).