The 2019 Golden Pin Design Award and Golden Pin Concept Design Award Ceremonies were held on December 5th at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. At this ceremony, the winners of “Best Design” were unveiled. This year’s award ceremony focused on the design industry’s role in implementing the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals under the theme “Gala @ 23:59”, curated by the award ceremony’s creative director, Keng-Ming Liu (Founder and Creative Director of Bito). The evening kicked off with an inspiring video that showed how design thinking can solve the problems facing everyone around the globe today, inspiring designers to resolve themselves to innovating design-related solutions that could change the world. At the grand event that day, many winners also responded to the theme, expressing their expectations as designers.
“Anyone in the audience who has been to participate in beach cleanup, please raise your hand”. That’s how the designer behind The Guidebook of Marine Debris — and winner of this year’s Best Design and Special Annual Award for Social Design — started off their acceptance speech. Taiwan RE-THINK Environmental Education Association and SimpleInfo Design continued their speech by addressing the issue of marine debris, “There’s a backstory to every piece of garbage strewn across the beach. If we want to make a change, we need to understand the root cause. We can’t just pick up the problem and throw it in the trash can.” Their vision for the future is raising awareness about the severity of the ocean plastic problem through design and new communication methods, “We can figure this out together. We can do this together. Let’s postpone the end of the world!”
▲ The Guidebook of Marine Debris is the winner of this year’s Best Design and Special Annual Award for Social Design.
Many of this year’s winners approached global environmental problems through the lens of sustainable design. Jian Qishen — the director of Architects Uncharted, who designed the award-winning “The Wheel” — said in his acceptance speech that the architecture industry releases a considerable amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Because of this, they attempted to promote a low-carbon design in Taiwan. However, they discovered this was easier said than one. They thanked the jury for recognizing their low-carbon design, and they hope that it will be an important next step in normalizing low-carbon architectural design.
▲ Qi-Shen Jian, the director of Architects Uncharted, received the award for “The Wheel”. This project appeared at the 2018 Taichung Floral Exhibition. It’s an attempt to link life with nature, weaving sustainability into the home.
▲ The Sound of Blooming appeared at the 2018 Taichung Floral Exhibition. Luxury Logico accepted an award at the Golden Pin Design Awards.
▲ Inspissated Landscape x The Blossom of Human Conscious by Motif Planning & Design Consultants appeared at the 2019 Taichung World Flora Exposition. It won the Best Design of Golden Pin Design Award 2019.
The HMM W Glass — the winner of this year’s Best Design and Special Annual Award for Circular Design — was designed by Kiwico Corporation. Liu Jia-Sheng, the managing director said that Taiwan has the second-highest glass recycling ratio in the world, behind Sweden. This is something Taiwan should be proud of. He also thanked Spring Pool Glass for their outstanding skill in glass recycling. Without them, the HMM W Glass would have been impossible. He asserted that the craftsmen of Spring Pool Glass should be the true winners of this award.
▲ The plan for HMM W Cup kicked off after meeting the Director-CTO of Spring Pool Glass, T.A. Wu, at last year’s Golden Pin Award Ceremony.
At the award ceremony, designers not only shared their perspective on design, but also reflected on their role as designers. One Thousand Times, a design studio based in Beijing, was recognized for designing the brand identity of sustainable living brand F2N Market. When accepting his award, Creative Director Roger Lo not only thanked the jury, but also brought up his “hope that designers can take on more projects that add value to society”, improving public welfare by rebuilding public work projects through the lens of design.
Tin Ham Lin — the designer of the Golden Pin Concept Design Award 2019 Best Design winner, Weapon Font — shared his journey of developing the font. Weapon Font originated from individual experience and emotions, and the fact that his work received recognition from the panel of jurists further emboldened him, “this experience proves to me that designers shouldn’t be afraid to put their emotions, memories, and personality into their artwork.”
▲ F2N Market by One Thousand Times receiving their award.
▲ Tin Ham Lin, the designer of Weapon Font, shared his experience developing the font.
On this exclusive stage, the designers who always work hard behind the scenes all showed their emotions and feelings. Ryan Kuo, a designer from Clearspace, an architecture firm that led the design for “A House”, said that design always drove him to work from dawn to dusk. He laughed and said he can finally explain to his family what he’s been doing all these years — even though he had won international awards, this is the first time that his mom was in the audience to watch him receive one.
When receiving the award for Zeiss ZX1, Cheong Peng Tat, the Sales and Marketing Director at Carl Zeiss Far East, said that even though he was born in Singapore, his wife’s family is all from Taiwan — and so he considers himself partially Taiwanese himself. He said today is a very special day for him, not just because it’s his wedding anniversary, but also because he received recognition from the design award based in Taiwan.
▲ Ryan Kuo, the designer of A House, and his mother.
▲ Cheong Peng Tat, the Sales and Marketing Director at Carl Zeiss Far East.
▲ Soar Design Studio won Best Design Award two years in a row.
After winning the Best Design Award in 2018 for their design Corners 60’s, Soar Design Studio came to the stage again for their design “Life in Tree House”. When accepting the award, Yu-Jui Chang first thanked the Golden Pin Design Award for recognizing their work, “it’s very reassuring to receive recognition from the Golden Pin Design Award, especially since we keep doing so much weird stuff”. He further shared that since becoming a father he doesn’t believe in the end of the world. He explained, “when it’s almost midnight and you finish your work and you go into your children’s room and see them sound asleep…you won’t believe in the end of the world. At the very least, you’ll make sure the end of the world doesn’t happen to your kids.”
