Red Dot Best of the Best. iF Gold. IDEA Gold. One top design award deserves a toast. Three require a blog post.
On August 20, we went to Pasadena to accept IDEA Gold for iA Notebook, completing the grand slam of international product design awards. Designers are trained to find faults in things that seem beautiful and finished—especially their own. Three of the strictest juries in design have now instructed us to take the compliment. We finally complied.
The Stage
At Red Dot, we ran toward the stage too early and so fast that the announcer had to ask us to slow down on the way back. Onstage at iF, we focused on the lines on the floor instead of the camera, only to discover that we had focused on the wrong lines.
The Industrial Designers Society of America gave us 30 seconds for a little speech: enough time for one calm, stuttered thank-you and congratulations to everyone else. We spent a couple of hours on the draft.
“Design begins with a kind of madness: the belief that improvement is possible, followed by the even madder belief that we might achieve it. We fail, adjust, and try again. It is an honor to be among people mad enough to keep trying. Thank you.”
That was the idea for IDEA. Onstage, it turned into a Swiss German “Thank You.” that reminded people to “Have fun.” One could argue that fun was also the point of the event. But by our third, actually fourth, award, we were not more relaxed than at the first.
The Idea
The idea behind our product was simple: we wanted a notebook with lines while writing and no lines while reading. One sentence. Ten years.
We moved one millimeter forward and two back. Debossing gave way to watermark lines. The lines grew thicker, then thinner. We tested 300 kinds of papers with enough pens to open a stationery shop. We did this for ten years. Talking to other designers, we discovered that this is perfectly normal.
The Designers
The lineup of winners was impressive. We enjoyed talking to the designers shaping incisionless surgery systems, robots that dance like Fred Astaire, and the future of forklifts.
Whatever the object—a surgical system, a forklift, a light switch, or a notebook—the design process sounded familiar: one millimeter forward, two back, until there was nothing left to cut. The designers themselves were made from the same material: curiosity, patience, and a mad sensitivity to what no one else could see.
The Product
Two years in, iA Notebook has collected more metal than seems plausible for something made entirely of paper. If you want to know how that was possible, remember: you cannot be told what iA Notebook is. You have to experience it yourself.
