INTRODUCTION

INDEX: Design to Improve Life is a Danish, mission-based, non-profit organization with worldwide outreach. We promote the application of design and design processes to improve important areas of people’s lives worldwide.

Our main tools are large-scale public events, labs, education, and communication. Among them is INDEX: Award - the world’s biggest design award - worth €500,000.

INDEX: is globally recognized for coining the concept of Design to Improve Life, based on the democratic and humane values of Danish design and is under the patronage of HRH the Crown Prince of Denmark.

What is Design to Improve Life?

“Design is the human capacity to make and shape our environment in ways that meet our needs and give meaning to our lives” (John Heskett, Chair and Professor of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and member of the International INDEX: Jury).

Design processes are the procedures that identify solutions based on the knowledge, responsiveness, and methodology of designers.

Design to Improve Life is the application of design and design processes to important areas of people’s lives spanning the contemporary design fields from product and communication design to service, process, and large-scale systemic design.

JUDGING NOMINATED DESIGNS

When judging the nominated designs, the International INDEX: Jury focuses on whether or not the design in question has qualities that will improve the lives of humans..

Furthermore, the jury members examinethree separate parameters when judging the nominated designs, namely, form, impact and context.

a) Form is concerned with the surface, material, interface, color, coherency, and aesthetics of the design.
b) Impact is concerned with the impact or potential impact of the design and, thus, the number of lives improved by the design, the distribution, and the economic and environmental sustainability of the design.
c) Context is concerned with the framework within which the design is intended to fit: the challenge, the relevance of the challenge, the culture, and the geography.

A Design to Improve Life is evaluated according to the three parameters of form, impact and context because, in short, form relates to design, impact to improve and context to life, as shown in the formula below.

To be considered for an INDEX:Award, the nominated design must have demonstrated a significant effect in relation to important world challenges. The nominated designs must demonstrate a significant impact on a wide geographic area.

In addition, nominated designs will be evaluated according to their environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

Finally, the INDEX: Jury focuses on whether or not the design addresses one or more of the UN Millennium Goals (http://www.mdgmonitor.org/browse_goal.cfm).

JUDGING PROCESS

The judging process includes two rounds:

In the first round, the jury will evaluate all nominated designs and select the finalists on the basis of the submitted nomination material. This round is an online process.

Following the jury’s selections, all finalists will be contacted by INDEX: and each of them must approve his/her position as finalist, approve of participating in INDEX:Award Exhibition, and - most importantly - provide several copies of additional material about the design (text, images, prototype, model, sample, etc.) to be used for an INDEX:Award Exhibition and for the second jury round. Finalists failing to comply with these requirements or failing to meet deadlines can, with no further warning, be excluded as a finalist by the INDEX: administration.

In the second judging round, the jury will evaluate all finalists again on the basis of the additional material sent to INDEX: in Copenhagen, and from among these finalists select the five winners of INDEX:Award 2011.

In principle, five monetary awards of 100,000 Euro are slated to be conferred. The INDEX: International jury can, however, entirely at their discretion, decide not to present one or more of the awards, or to make changes to the prize sum of the awards, if the quality of the nominated designs warrants it. The awards are conferred on the basis of nominations from around the world and at the discretion of INDEX:’s independent international jury.

In the event that the following facts come to light, INDEX: may revoke the INDEX: Award presented and demand the prize money be returned:

• Malfunction, misuse, misinformation or withheld information about the design.
• Unintended use in the hands of unintended users.

WHAT IS ELIGIBLE FOR INDEX:AWARD 2011?

Nominated designs can be tangible designs or intangible designs, such as concepts, strategies or services. Nominated designs can also be graphic design, communication design, industrial design, green-tech/clean-tech design, digital design, architecture, urban planning, etc.

Nominated designs must be genuinely new. Sheer restyling of known designs is insufficient, unless it implies a genuinely new aspect to improve life. Previous publication of the design is accepted.

Nominated designs must, as a minimum, be on a prototype stage, which enables testing or user comments.

The nominated designs must not date back later than 2005.

Nominated designs must not previously have been chosen as finalist for INDEX:Award.

CATEGORIES

INDEX: Award is split into five categories: Body, Home, Work, Play and Community.
One prize worth 100,000 Euros will be presented to the winner in each category.

The five categories represent the entire human life, and each category calls for entries from very different design fields. All nominated designs will be divided into the five categories by the INDEX: staff. The INDEX: Jury upholds the right to move a design from one category to another at any given time.

BODY

This category comprises all designs related to the body, for example: clothes, shoes, appliances and aids used in treatment and care, tools to help in covering basic or sophisticated needs, body-related technology as in hearing aids. Services related to health and care, strategies regarding vital processes and public health and demographic development.

HOME

This category comprises all designs related to the home, for example: architecture, interior design, lighting, furniture, tools, appliances for the home, utility systems, software and communications hardware etc. Services and processes for the home and strategies for new ways of living and new forms of cohabitation.

WORK

This category comprises all designs related to work and/or education, for example: architecture and interior design, work tools, manufacturing machines, aids as well as communications, control and management systems. The category also comprises services for work- and learning environments and strategies for issues related to this, as well as strategies for organizational and managerial development.

PLAY

This category comprises all designs related to sport, play, leisure and culture, for example: the design of leisure facilities, tools, games and equipment used for sports, cultural activities and other leisure activities. Design of strategies, services and concepts within these areas.

COMMUNITY

This category comprises all designs of things that we share communally, for example: roads, public spaces and parks, cities, infrastructure, means of transport, signage, mass media and communications. The design of strategies, services and concepts for society, networking and communities.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR NOMINATION?

Designers, design teams, cross-disciplinary teams, public and private companies as well as design students and design enthusiasts from all over the world.

INDEX: has no requirements regarding formal design education for INDEX:Award 2011 nominees.

WHO CAN NOMINATE?

People from all over the world can nominate for INDEX:Award 2011.
Nominating is completely free of charge.

Examples of nominating bodies:

• Private individuals, including designers, commercial companies who wish to nominate for INDEX:Award 2011.
• INDEX: Regional Ambassadors.
• Professional design institutions, i.e. design centers, design universities, design competitions, design organizations etc.
• Members of the International INDEX: Jury. To ensure access to our jury's vast knowledge about Design to Improve Life, we allow jurors to nominate for INDEX:Award 2011. However, members of the jury will not be able to nominate own designs, and they will have to plea incompetency in judging designs nominated by themselves. Designs created in a process, where a juror in one way or the other – as teacher, consultant or actual designer – has been involved and subsequently nominated by others, may be among the finalists – but cannot win INDEX:Award 2011.
• The INDEX: staff and administration can also identify and nominate appropriate designs.

If you – as an individual, a company representative or an institution – nominate a design, you are under the obligation to notify the designer(s) and if necessary to obtain permission from the designer(s), before the design is nominated.

RIGHTS

Nominated designs must be original and may not infringe on the rights of a third party. Designs failing these requirements will be excluded from INDEX:Award.

All rights to the nominated designs belong to and stay with the legal bearer of the rights.

INDEX: does, however, reserve the right – without payment – to use any nomination-related text and electronic material (images, video) uploaded to the online nomination form for INDEX: marketing purposes; including, but not limited to, press material, catalogues, websites and third-party marketing, for example in printed or electronic media. The nomination body must in advance ensure that these rights can be transferred to INDEX: with the permission of the designer. Failing this, the design will not be eligible for nomination.

INDEX: reserves the right – without payment – to exhibit the finalists for INDEX: Award at INDEX: Award Exhibition in Denmark, at an international tour and at various exhibition events in other countries. The designer must in writing agree that the above rights can be transferred to INDEX: Failing to do so, the design will not be eligible for receiving INDEX:Award 2011.

USING THE INDEX: LOGO

All finalists for INDEX: Award retain the right to use the designation: Finalist for INDEX: Award 2011 and the hereto related logo.

The five winning designs retain the right to use the designation: Winner of INDEX: Award 2011/(category) and the hereto related logo.
Other designs nominated for the INDEX: Award 2011 must obtain written permission from INDEX: to use the INDEX: name and logo.

EXAMPLES OF DESIGN TO IMPROVE LIFE USED BY INDEX: IN VARIOUS INFORMATION MATERIALS

The examples of Design to Improve Life that INDEX: use in various information materials are not precluded from nomination for INDEX: Award.