The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd. present the Museum's annual GOOD DESIGN ® Awards Program for the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product, and graphic designs produced around the world. The deadline for this year's submission is June 1st, 2023. EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 15th, JUNE 2023
Each year, The Chicago Athenaeum presents the GOOD DESIGN Awards Program for the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product, and graphic designs produced around the world
The GOOD DESIGN® exhibition program began as a sponsorship between The Merchandise Mart in Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and continues today by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.
The program called for three shows a year: one during the Chicago winter furniture market in January, another coinciding with the June summer market, and a November show based on the previous two exhibitions. Each year, a different prestigious designer was selected to curate the installation. Charles and Ray designed the 5,300-square-foot space for the inaugural installation in 1950, followed by Finn Juhl, Paul Rudolph, and Alexander Girard.
GOOD DESIGN is the oldest and the most prestigious Awards Program organized worldwide. Founded in Chicago in 1950 by the former MoMA curator Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., together with such pioneers in modern design as Charles and Ray Eames, Russel Wright, George Nelson, and Eero Saarinen, GOOD DESIGN honors the yearly achievements of the best industrial and graphic designers and world manufacturers for their pursuit of extraordinary design excellence.
Every year, designers and manufactures in about 50 nations are honored for their singular achievements in producing hallmarks of contemporary design. For 71 years, everything and anything produced in and for the environment from a paperclip to a Boeing 787 Dreamliner or NASA Space Ship have been honored.
The emphasis of the GOOD DESIGN program is on quality design of the highest form, function, and aesthetics a standard beyond ordinary consumer products and graphics. The Chicago Athenaeum's GOOD DESIGN program forwards the ideals of a design process that embodies product excellence and endurance and strong public identity. Submissions to the program are judged by a jury of distinguished design professionals and leading industry specialists and design press on criteria established in the original 1950 program for the highest aesthetic in terms of innovative design, new technologies, form, materials, construction, concept, function, utility, and energy efficiency, and sensitivity to the environment.
GOOD DESIGN is an international symbol of a company's firm commitment to innovation and superior design embodiment. Materials and products are accessed into the Museum's Permanent Design Collection and frequently exhibited in the United States and abroad.
