– Design plays increasingly important role in advertising.

The results of the red dot award: communication design 2008 have been finalised. In the competition, which is one of the most important and largest design competitions worldwide, the international jury of experts had to sift
and assess a deluge of in total roughly 6,000 submitted works from 39 countries.

Out of these entries, which were all from the field of communication design, 343 received the “red dot” distinction, and the “red dot: best of the best” for articularly outstanding design achievements was awarded 38 times.

This year for the first time a design company or communication agency will receive the honorary title “red dot: design agency of the year” for continuously above-average design achievements.

The winner of this honorary award as well as the winners of the special awards “red dot: grand prix” and the “red dot: junior prize”, which comes with a prize purse of 10,000 euros, will be announced at the awards ceremony on december 3, 2008 in the gala hall of the Casino Zollverein.

All prize-winning works will be presented to the public in an exhibition taking place at the red dot design museum in Essen, Germany, from December 4, 2008 to January 11, 2009.

– A unique European Trend Study –

In northern Europe 40% of all business travellers are women and in Germany the number of travelling business women (currently 25%) is rapidly rising too.

Lufthansa has already responded to this trend by publishing a magazine especially aimed at businesswomen and a few hotels have started, hesitantly, to take note of their female guests.

as design festival with an international layout.

The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK lets visitors see and feel the multifaceted producing in the fields of product, furniture and industrial design from October 2 until 12. After the successful festival premiere last year the event programme presents the work of designers from Austria and the world in Vienna. With help of numerous partners – stretching from Viennese museums and producers, over shops and design institutions to designers from all over the world – for ten intense days Vienna will become a platform for design. Again, Neigungsgruppe Design – Tulga Beyerle,Thomas Geisler und Lilli Hollein – is responsible for programme and realisation.

red dot increases its involvement in the Arab world with a new promising cooperation: as a strategic partner of dmg world media, one of the largest international trade fair organisers and publishing companies, red dot will for the first time present itself with its own large exhibition at the interior design trade fair “Index 2008” in Dubai from 3 to 7 December 2008.

“Design on stage – Index presents red dot winners” is the title of the exhibition, which will open the door for the winners of the red dot design award – one of the largest and most important international design competitions – presented there to the currently most important growth market in the world. Recently, Bernard Walsh, managing director of dmg world media, and Professor Dr. Peter Zec, initiator of the red dot design award, signed the respective contract.

Since the great stock exchange crash in 2000 the stock price of the Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony has never really recovered. In the past year alone, it dropped by about 27 percentage points at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Unlike its competitors Sony showed not much resistance against this slump in the past five years.

In contrast, Apple, Samsung, LG Electronics or Philips, improved their stock prices more or less been steeply in the past few years. With a comprehensive design offensive the Japanese electronics manufacturer seems to control this negative trend struggling to regain market shares it has lost over the past years to more flexible and aggressive competitors.