The Sorona Plate and Bowl Collection from Palm Products has just been awarded with the Red Dot, the international distinction for high design quality. Participants from 57 nations had registered about 5,200 products and innovations for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016. Only products which set themselves apart considerably through their excellent design receive the sought-after quality seal from the international Red Dot jury.
This is the 2nd Red Dot awarded to Palm Products, the first being for the Marc Newson Unbreakable Drinkware Collection in 2014. This is a significant achievement for a small company. It is a reflection of the values and innovative spirit of the staff and the support of key suppliers.
Robert Wilson was responsible for the Sorona Plate and Bowl Collection’s design and technical development.
The Idea
The idea was to develop a beautiful collection that would give pleasure in use and be sustainable.
The aim was to achieve a significant advance in design, surface finish, functionality and sustainability over existing melamine and plastic crockery. In order to achieve this, two disruptive technologies were used.
- The first disruptive technology was the use of a new super-tough, high density material called Sorona® from DuPont™. Scratch resistance limitations of existing plastic plates are practically overcome with Sorona’s high density and toughness and with additives used on mobile phones. Sorona contains 35% renewably sourced material derived from corn waste in Kentucky USA.
- The second disruptive technology was the use of advanced 2-material moulding to economically add an integral coloured non-slip ring and to enable a finish like fine-bone china.
The Sorona collection is the first in the DuPont world to use this material for a homeware product, probably the first to use scratch resistant additives and probably the first to integrally mould a non-slip ring.
In order to achieve Asian competitive costs, the range was designed for automated production and zero manufactured rejects. An advanced 2-material automated production cell was developed.
The technical challenges were substantial.
The resultant product has exceeded expectations – particularly its outstanding blemish free surface and its beautiful shapes.
The tooling was manufactured in Australia and the collection is produced at Palm’s facility in Melbourne Australia.
It is already a commercial success being sold in Australia and exported worldwide.
With 41 experts from all around the world, who are chosen according to strict rules, the Red Dot Award: Product Design guarantees a very high judging competence: Only freelance designers, design professors and specialised journalists – but not designers employed at companies potentially participating – are appointed to the jury.
The independent expert panel assesses each entry strictly and fairly according to criteria such as degree of innovation, formal quality, functionality and ecological compatibility. Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and president of the Red Dot Award: “With their performances, the Red Dot winners not only demonstrated an extraordinary design quality, but they also showed that design is an integral part of innovative product solutions.”
4 July 2016 marks the culmination of the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016. During the glamorous awards ceremony, the Red Dot: Best of the Best laureates will accept their trophies in front of around 1,200 guests. At the subsequent after-show party “Designers’ Night”, the winners will receive their certificates and celebrate until the early hours in the Red Dot Design Museum Essen in the midst of prize-winning products. All award-winning products will be presented in the special exhibition “Design on Stage” for four weeks, before becoming part of the permanent exhibition.
With about 2,000 exhibits from 45 nations, the Red Dot Design Museum Essen displays the complete range of current product design. In the former boiler house of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein coal mine, it presents products that have won the Red Dot on five floors and approximately 4,000 square metres. Every year, the world’s largest exhibition of contemporary design informs around 150,000 visitors about current trends and top achievements.
About the Red Dot Design Award:
In order to appraise the wide scope of design in a professional manner, the Red Dot Design Award is broken down into the three distinct disciplines: the Red Dot Award: Product Design, Red Dot Award: Communication Design and Red Dot Award: Design Concept. The Red Dot Award is organised by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany. With more than 17,000 entries in 2015 alone, it is one of the largest competitions in the world. It was in 1955 that a jury convened for the first time to assess the best designs of the day. The name and brand of the award were developed in the 1990s by Red Dot CEO, Professor Dr. Peter Zec. Since then the sought-after “Red Dot” is the revered international seal of outstanding design quality. Further information: www.red-dot.org
