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The 10 most highly prized industrial design awards

An industrial design award can launch a designer’s career, so is highly sought after, and there are plenty of design competitions out there to enter if you’re interested. 

Although most of the competitions emphasise consumer product design, and often software-oriented products, the industrial product categories are also extensively included.

And if you can’t find one that has a category that seems to suit your category now, if you wait long enough, someone will organise one. 

New design competitions are being created all the time, with the prize money becoming more attractive.

Often the prize is awarded in the form of investment.

Anyway, here’s a list of 10 industrial design competitions worth looking into if you’ve designed or are planning to design an award-winning product:

  1. Red Dot Award: Product Design
  2. IF Design Award
  3. International Design Excellence Awards
  4. Core77 Design Awards
  5. International Design Awards
  6. AlphaLab Gear Hardware Cup
  7. ASME Innovation Showcase
  8. Instructables Makerspace Contest
  9. Maker Media Launch Pad
  10. Good Design Award

There’s probably many we don’t know about, so if you know of any that should be on the list, let us know.

And there’s some we noticed but left out because they’re not specifically about industrial design. For example, MassChallenge is more of a startup-friendly accelerator rather than a design competition. But it has $2 million in cash prizes on offer, so it’s definitely worth mentioning.

But we’ll try and keep it to 10 most highly prized, with an emphasis on accessibility, as in you don’t have to be a massive company to enter.

Certainly for the Instructables and Maker Media awards, startups and freelances are welcome.