Renowned Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa took the US$500,000 top prize yesterday in a competition to design medals for winners of the Tang Prize (唐獎) — an international award established by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) for global leaders in the fields of sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, Sinology and the rule of law. The prizes have a total fund of NT$3 billion (US$ 1 million).
The winner of the International Invitational Tang Prize Medal Design Competition was announced in Taipei at an award ceremony attended by the 10 of the finalists, all of whom are prominent names in international design.
The nine other finalists receive US$50,000 each.
Photo: CNA
Fukasawa, a designer for Japanese retailer Muji and many other international brands, has been named as one of the world’s most influential designers by Bloomberg Businessweek magazine and has won several other prestigious awards, including the US’ International Design Excellence Award and Germany’s iF design award.
He is known for his simple and intuitive industrial designs. He believes a good design should blend naturally with a user’s behavior, without the user having to think about it, a design philosophy he has named “Without Thought.”
One of his most famous pieces is a wall-mounted CD player he designed for Muji in the 1990s, which became one of Japan’s most iconic industrial designs of that time.
His winning designs for the Tang Prize feature medals in the shape of spiral curves. Descriptions of the four categories of the Tang Prize — are carved into the back of each medal in circles along the spiral structure.
The other finalists were Kenji Ekuan from Japan, GK Design Group chairman and former International Council of Societies of Industrial Design president Gunter Wermekes, a German goldsmith and designer who designed the new Red Dot Trophy; Australian graphic designer Harry Williamson; and Kan Tai-keung (靳埭強), dubbed Hong Kong’s “father of graphic design.”
The other finalists were Taiwanese designer Chen Jun-liang (陳俊良), known for his use of Chinese calligraphy and Eastern imagery; Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom, who specializes in book design; Italian jewelry designer Massimo Zucchi; British graphic and coin designer Matthew Dent; and British jewelry artist Lin Cheung, who designed the medals for the London 2012 Paralympics.
The Tang Prize Foundation and Taiwan Design Center jointly organized the International Invitational Tang Prize Medal Design Competition, inviting 25 international design organizations to nominate designers.
A total of 61 designers from 15 countries were nominated.
Ten designers were selected by an international panel of judges in February to participate in the final round.
For the finals, each designer presented a medal design for each of the four categories of the Tang Prize. The winning medals will be manufactured by the Central Mint from pure gold and will have a diameter of 6.6cm.
The Tang Prize was established to honor top international researchers in the four categories.
The first laureates will be announced on June 18. Up to three winners will claim a cash prize of NT$50 million for each category.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai