Hyundai Motor sweeps iF Design Award 2021

It was a moment of triumph for Hyundai Motor Company at the world-renowned International Forum (iF) Design Award 2021 last week with 14 awards for design excellence, including iF’s top Gold award for the ‘E-pit ultra-fast charger’ for electric vehicle (EV).

So far, Hyundai Motor has now been honoured at seven consecutive iF Design Award events, including three coveted Gold awards, which go to only 75 of the best designs among nearly 10,000 annual entries.

The brand’s triumphs cut across various disciplines such as product, communication, user interface, architecture, and professional concept. In particular, the company is recognized for its brand communication design with six awards in the communication category for the first time.

“This award is considered to be the part in which Hyundai has been fully recognized by global experts in the field of brand communication beyond product design,” said Thomas Schemera, executive vice president and global chief marketing officer at Hyundai Motor. “In the future, we will strengthen our activities to build an innovative brand image through creative and sustainable customer experiences.”

Taking a rare Gold award, the ‘E-pit ultra-fast charger’ greatly improves user experience by solving several problems that are typically found in EV chargers such as bulky cables, complicated operation and service use, unclear charging status, hygiene (especially important during a pandemic) as well as production and maintenance.

Inspired by the pit stops of Formula One racing, Hyundai Design Center designed E-pit to offer fast, easy, convenient and premium services to EV customers. It’s easy to use and provides a simple yet powerful design solution that considers a variety of things from hygiene to maintenance.

“Innovative design comes out when the designer focuses on the user’s experience as the top priority,” said SangYup Lee, Senior Vice President and Head of Hyundai Global Design Center. “The E-pit design is the absolute result of our efforts to offer a new charging experience to customers.”

E-pit’s design considers various charging scenarios based on the Hyundai Motor’s human-centered philosophy. For example, its large roof provides a comfortable charging experience regardless of weather conditions. Moreover, the auto-positioning feature, which automatically moves the charging cable, allows diverse charging positions for different vehicles.

iF Design Award is among the largest and most important design competitions in the world, founded in 1954 by iF International Forum Design GmbH in Hanover, one of the world’s leading independent design institutions.

This year, the competition, for which participants from 52 countries submitted more than 9,500 entries, featured several innovations. These include a digital preliminary round (‘Online Preselection’), in which half of the submissions are selected for the final round (‘Final Jury’), a transparent evaluation of all categories, including new disciplines ‘user experience’ (UX) and ‘user interface’ (UI).

Other categories are product, communication, packaging and service design, architecture, interior design and professional concepts. This year, the iF jury comprised 98 independent international design experts. All award-winning products are published in the ‘iF World Design Guide’

Frank Chisom