The 2014 Red Dot Design Award winners have been announced, with 72 winners selected by the judges for the highest accolade in the competition, the Red Dot: Best of the Best. 

This amounts to only 1.5 per cent of a record-breaking 4,815 entries taking home this honour in 2014, with Australia-based Electrolux’s Ergorapido being one of the 72.

The Electrolux Ergorapido has a self-standing, flexible design, with the vacuum easily and quickly removed from its charging stand. Its accessible 2-in-1 functionality also makes cleaning different surfaces easy, while its latest BRUSHROLLCLEAN™ Technology maintains the brush roll with little fuss. Today, over 90 million units of the Electrolix Ergorapido has been sold around the world. 

Another three Red Dot awards went to Electrolux's UltraCaptic, UltraOne and Rapido vacuums. 

Electrolux Ergorapido

A team of 40 experts formed the jury panel, with the jury sessions spanning three days. The submissions were broken down into a variety of categories, including gardens, bathrooms and spas, vehicles and urban designs, and consumer electronics. 

The products had to prove their worth in several different areas, with the judges taking into account their functionality, level of innovation, formal quality and ecological compatibility. 

In 2014, the judges also awarded the Red Dot for excellent product design to 1,120 products, and Honourable Mentions for especially refined detail solutions to 123 products. 

“The Red Dot Award: Product Design gives design professionals from all over the world a chance to measure themselves against each other,” explains Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, initiator and CEO of the Red Dot Award. 

“Year after year, this results in a higher level of design and also motivates the participants to enter their best products in the competition.”

The Red Dot label has also proven to be a good marketing instrument for award winners, with the competition’s own tools, such as the Red Dot Design Yearbook and exhibitions of the Red Dot Design Museums, ensuring a large reach for winners. 

The awards ceremony for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2014 will take place on Monday, 7 July 2014 at the Aalto-Theater in Essen, Germany. A special exhibition will be held for almost a month from 8 July at the Red Dot Design Museum, also in Essen, Germany. 

More information can be found on http://red-dot.de/pd/?lang=en.