There are many Product Design Awards over the calendar year, and most other industries will have their share of awards too. Have you ever entered one of your products in a competition?

We recently entered a new hand held electronic device into the Design Week Awards 2012.

Why? Well we don’t have particularly large egos, but is always nice if the work you do gets recognition. But the real opportunity is one of marketing. The very fact we have entered the awards gives us something positive to talk about, and suggests we are delivering high quality work worthy of consideration in a national competition. Imagine if we were to win! The product, the company who own it, and our design capabilities will receive national press for all the right reasons.

Any business can talk about their own merits, USPs, etc, but it will always carry more weight if the positive words come from an unbiased third party with industry knowledge.

When you look at your product range, do you feel it’s worthy of competing for an award against others in your sector? If not, perhaps its time for change.

The MD of a medical diagnostics business once told us he wanted his products “to be the Apple Computers of our industry”. We are certainly up for a challenge, and that particular project recently won first place in a plastics design industry competition. Great PR for the client, their product, and the design team.