products categories/ The MCB Design Award has been present for over three decades in the history of Brazilian design, enough time for design professionals to understand its relevance. Each edition brings a landscape of the moment we live in economy and culture, besides being an important place to discuss the conception of each piece or product that will be part of people’s lives. And this discussion brings together high-level professionals, among colleagues from the Design market and the academy, which compose our body of judges. This year we finally achieved a balance between genders with the same number of male and female judges, which has much enriched the process due to very different and judicious views on each theme. We’re glad! In addition to the two stages of traditional judging, the first one 16/
being digital and the second one having the actual pieces at the judges’ disposal, we had the opportunity to propose yet a third session. During the “Intervention” stage, all the judges could question the decisions previously made by the members of each category, including those of already awarded projects. An exercise of humbleness and openness to the views of colleagues, this innovation in the judging process allowed an even more transversal and comprehensive analysis, result of a more systemic and rich view of Design that takes into consideration different perspectives beyond each one’s expertise. Still in regard of the process, this year we’ll repeat the same successful formula of last edition. During the exhibit opening, the judges will be at the public’s
disposal to promote an open and informal discussion about the decisions made and to give feedbacks about rewarding or not a given project. Thus, we’ll continue to promote this rich formation process bringing authors together with their public and ever-constructive criticism, which invariably results in the improvement of Design production in Brazil. Regarding the presented projects, we watched a surprising evolution in the amount and quality of the works submitted to the “Electronics” and “Utensils” categories, probably result of a resumption of these so important segments of our economy. We saw products of international relevance, solutions that result from a judicial observation of habits and behaviors of the Brazilian consumer. The “Lighting” and “Furniture” categories historically have the higher representativeness