sep 02, 2010

'earos' by robert potter 'design for all' competition shortlisted revealed

‘earos’

‘earos’ by robert potter from canada is one of the 240 shortlisted entries from more than 5100 participants in our recent designboom competition ‘design for all‘ in collaboration with seoul design fair 2010.

designer’s own words: ‘earos is a padded cushion that attaches to mobile phones, creating a soft, luxurious support for the ear. its simple but versatile fastener allows it to connect to most phone models, and rotates on two axes so that the unit can be quickly repositioned when not in use. the elegant, ergonomic design and soft, synthetic suede material bring new joy to a universal human ritual – the telephone conversation.’

the earpiece creates support during phone conversations

the piece fastens onto the ear for comfort

andrea chin I designboom

sep 02, 2010

Gerard and Desingboom,
I agree with you about the fact that the subject of the competition was very hard to understand. now that I see the winners and shortlisted designs I realize that the design I submitted for the competition didn’t really fit and had no chance in the competition. I wish that next time the guidelines will be more clear so I don’t waste so much of my time and my energy on the wrong idea…
Boots
Sep 04, 2010
the shortlist is interesting though. great ideas. thank you for organizing competitions, they are my favorite feature on designboom. me and my korean friends (we participated in this competition but are not among the shortlisted) we think that the theme itself and the way it was described (and the complicated awards) were typically conceived for korean people. I am french and I did not really understand what was meant with ‘design for all’ and I submitted maybe something too generic.
designboom, next time, please shorter instructions and better explained.
gerard
Sep 04, 2010
we co-organize competitions since 10 years and we still think that no voting method is fair,
because no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking
while also meeting a certain set of criteria.
we struggled hard to convince THEM to reduce THEIR jury to the same amount of members as our jury,
but we did not succeed. unfortunately the number of jury members was not part of our initial contract among co-organizers but has been an argument for a week-long discussion…
(in every new contract that we’ll issue from now on it will be included).
BUT … in our defense I must say that the jury members have been published on the call for entries and participants did know who will select the winners, before entering to this contest.
there was no meeting. every jury member saw the entries online, completely anonymous entries,
in the order of submission. through our voting system every jury member gave points to every entry
and in this way a mathematical result determined the first shortlist.
in a second moment, a second preference among the shortlisted was expressed by the jury to determine the ranking and winners.
I was a jury member too – among the in total 15 koreans and 12 international jury members –
I saw all entries and have spent an incredible amount of time browsing through the various proposals and I must say that even I did not vote for every of them, more or less I agree with the first prizes
(I like them all and particularly appreciate the 4 first prizes!).
believe it or not, koreans were more motivated and worked harder this time!
birgit/designboom.com
Sep 04, 2010