April 18, 2005
Taiwanese companies claimed a total of 28 awards at the iF product design awards 2005 in Germany in March. Considered the Oscars of the international industrial design world, the awards are presented annually by Germany's iF International Forum Design.
In competition with a total of 2,332 entries, Taiwanese products rated their best showing to date by earning 28 of the total of 542 awards presented this year. This is also the first time for Taiwan to grab as many awards as South Korea, home of such major corporations as Samsung and LG.
AsusTek Computer Inc. won five awards, including a gold medal in the computer category for its ASUS W1 carbon fiber notebook PC. This is the first time for a Taiwanese entry to earn the top award when competing directly against designs from Sony and Samsung.
The design team at BenQ Corp., established just three years ago, was able to walk away with ten awards this year, one more than South Korea's LG.
The performances of AsusTek and BenQ impressed Ralph Wiegmann, director of iF International Forum Design, who noted that while Samsung had already invested ten years in design, Taiwan's twin computer giants have made great accomplishments in just three years.
Cellink Co., Acer, Inc. and Transcend Information, Inc. were among the other Taiwanese companies claiming iF awards this year.
In addition to enticing Taiwanese designers that have pursued design careers overseas to return to Taiwan, Taiwan's growing strength as a design leader is also expected to draw top international designers to Taiwanese firms. Leading global industrial design firms have also begun setting up their own operations in Taiwan.
(China Times)
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