SEGD (the Society for Experiential Graphic Design), a multidisciplinary global
community of professionals who create experiences that connect people to place, has announced the winning projects in this year’s SEDG Global Design Awards. The winners were announced during SEDG’s annual conference, which took place from 4 – 6 November in Philadelphia.
A total of 40 projects were celebrated, covering a wide variety of topics, disciplines and verticals. These range from work that highlights the role of design in addressing themes of equity, accessibility, language and climate change, to interactive explorations of the Arctic and Indigenous art, to strategic wayfinding manuals.
Best of Show
This year, “Found in Translation” from Studio TheGreenEyl was awarded Best of Show. An interactive and immersive installation, this was created for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and explores the process of machine translation. Visitors could see how the machine learning model clusters words from different languages by semantic similarity, through a series of visualisations that travelled across the whole room.
They could also read information on the technology behind the installation, explaining multilingual machine learning models, transfer learning and other findings.
One juror said, “I love how this very technical topic of machine translation was humanized and visualized. Using spoken sentences for the input of the visitors and output of the machines amplifies the human connection. The simple elegant motion graphics coupled with the spatial setup created an intimate experience despite the amount of media being used.”
The 2021 Sylvia Harris Award
This award recognises design for the public good and takes its name from Sylvia Harris, the
founder of Citizen Research & Design. This year’s winner was the installation “Seat at the Table” developed by Dome Collective, in collaboration with Drexel University Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership, Vision 2020.
A temporary exhibition looking at gender inequity in America, the installation asked “Where are we now?” As the Insititute’s mission relies on coalition building, it was important that the work engaged visitors without using partisan cues. The exhibition aimed to inspire individual and collective action, making sure that everyone has a “seat at the table” where decisions are made that shape the US as a whole.
“The fact that real people walk around and inhabit those graphics (even unknowingly), reiterates that this data represents real experiences and reflects trends that are bigger than any one person. It is a strong execution with an important message that I think is memorable and meaningful,” said Dayton Schroeter, principal and design director at Smith Group (Washington DC), SEGD Board Member and 2021 SEGD Global Design Awards Jury Chair.
This year’s jury included nine other multitalented and internationally acclaimed designers, in addition to Schroeter:
- L’Rai Arthur-Mensah, Local Projects, (New York)
- Leticia Barajas, NIKE, (Portland, Oregon)
- Chris Calori, SEGD Fellow, Calori Design, (New York)
- Jonathan Evans, MASS Design Group, (New York)
- Waqas Jawaid, Isometrics, (New York)
- Bhawika Mishra (student juror), Two Twelve, (New York)
- Traci Sym, Plus Greater Than, (Portland, Oregon)
- Phillip Tiongson, POTION, (New York)
- Tanja Zöllner, Atelier Brueckner, (Stuttgart, Germany)
Projects were submitted across seven categories representing the core of experiential
graphic design practice: Digital Experience Content, Exhibition, Interactive Experience,
Placemaking and Identity, Public Installation, Strategy/Research/Planning and
Wayfinding.
In total, there were 267 entries from across the globe. 14 Honor Awards and 26 Merit Awards were given.
2021 Honor Awards
- 447 Collins. Wayfinding | Melbourne, Australia. Design: Studio Ongarato
- Aotea-Te Pokapū, Aotea Centre. Wayfinding | Auckland, New Zealand. Design: Maynard Design Consultancy
- Arctic Adventure: Exploring with Technology. Interactive Experiences | Boston, MA. Design: Moment Factory
- COPENHAGEN: Sustainable by Design. Exhibition | West Chester, Pennsylvania. Design: West Chester University
- Dialogue with You and Me. Placemaking and Identity | Shanghai, China. Design: YAKi Design
- FDNY Fire Zone. Digital Experience Content | New York, New York. Design: Batwin + Robin Productions
- Here Together, We Are Home. Public Installation | Tasmania, Australia. Design: Futago
- Port Authority Wayfinding Manual. Strategy/Research/Planning | New York and New Jersey. Design: Mijksenaar USA + W&CO
- United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum. Interactive Experiences | Colorado Springs, CO. Design: Centre Screen Ltd., Gallagher & Associates
- Western Australian Museum. Wayfinding | Perth, Australia. Design: Studio Ongarato
- The Writing on the Wall. Public Installation | New York, New York. Design: Manuel Miranda Project
- YAMAL: Warmth of the Arctic. Exhibition | Salekhard, Russia. Design: Lorem Ipsum Corp
2021 Merit Awards
- 2019 Bi-City Biennale Of Urbanism/Architecture (Uabb) Guangming Sub-Venue: Guangming, Inter-Connected Future. Exhibition | Shenzhen, China. Design: SURE Design
- AMERICANS. Exhibition | Washington, DC. Design: Studio Joseph
- Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Satellite Office @ UMMA. Public Installation | Ann Arbor, Michigan. Design: Hannah Smotrich, Stephanie Rowden, Creative Campus Voting Project
- Bendigo Art Gallery + Josh Muir: What’s on Your Mind? Digital Experience Content | Victoria, Australia. Design: Art Processors
- Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches. Exhibition | Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Design: Royal Ontario Museum
- Centennial College Downsview Campus Centre for Aerospace and Aviation. Wayfinding | Toronto, Canada. Design: MJMA
- Chinese Academy Of Sciences (Shenzhen) Incubation Headquarters Base. Wayfinding | Shenzhen, China. Design: SURE Design
- Climate Converter. Interactive Experience | Wellington, New Zealand. Design: DOTDOT
- Connecting Flight: Creating a Hub for Alaska Airlines Crew. Placemaking and Identity | Seatac, Washington. Design: NBBJ
- COVID-19 Signage and Wayfinding. Wayfinding | London, United Kingdom. Design: EF Education First Architecture & Design Studio
- ENERGYM. Interactive Experience | Taipei, Taiwan. Design: 23Design, Cogitoimage International Co., LTD.
- The Glass Lab. Placemaking and Identity | Portland, Oregon. Design: Tryba Architects
- Hyde Park Barracks Museum. Exhibition | Sydney, Australia. Design: Local Projects
- The Ian Potter Southbank Centre (Melbourne Conservatorium Of Music). Wayfinding | Victoria, Australia. Design: Diadem
- King of Dinosaurs. Digital Experience Content | Copenhagen, Denmark. Design: Natural History Museum of Denmark
- Lavazza Casa 1895. Exhibition | Settimo Torinese, Italy. Design: Ralph Appelbaum Associates
- Long Beach Police and Fire Department Memorial. Public Installation | Long Beach, California. Design: Skidmore Owings & Merrill, LLP
- North Beaches Hospital. Wayfinding | Sydney, Australia. Design: Urbanite
- Reflections on Grief and Child Loss. Exhibition | Washington, DC. Design: Howard+Revis Design
- SF-Marin Food Bank, Marin Welcome Center. Placemaking and Identity | San Rafael, California. Design: Skidmore Owings & Merrill, LLP
- SIRIUS (dog park sculpture). Placemaking and Identity | Queensland, Australia. Design: Diadem
- Trajan Market Museum Exhibit Design. Exhibition | Ames, Iowa. Design: Iowa State University
- United Sculpture at Allianz Field. Public Installation | Minneapolis, Minnesota. Design: Populous
- United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum. Exhibition | Colorado Springs, CO. Design: Gallagher & Associates
- Willowbrook / Rosa Parks Station Improvements. Placemaking and Identity | Los Angeles, California. Design: Metro Arts + Design, SKA Design
- Y-Comic-X? (100 Years of Chinese Cartoon Exhibition) Exhibition | Shenzhen, China. Design: SURE Design.
