Michael Bierut Wins National Design Award

Michael Bierut has won the Design Mind Award in this year’s National Design Awards presented by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

“The Design Mind Award recognizes a visionary who has affected a paradigm shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship,” states the NDA release. “Bierut’s ability to articulate and deconstruct the design process has raised the consciousness of an entire field and sparked a national dialogue.” Bierut is a cofounder of Design Observer and his book Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design was published last year by Princeton Architectural Press. (And he deejayed the NDA After-Party in 2006.)

Bierut’s fellow 2008 NDA laureates include Scott Stowell for communications design, Antenna for product design, Tom Kundig for architecture design, Ralph Rucci for fashion design, Rockwell Group for interior design, Olin Partnership for landscape design, Google for corporate achievement and Charles Harrison for lifetime achievement. Bruce Nussbaum and Michael Sorkin were finalists in the Design Mind category. The National Design Awards program “seeks to increase national awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation and lasting achievement.” The award will be presented in a ceremony at the NDA gala on 23 October.

Announcement coverage: The New York Times, Design Observer