26 Feb 2025
Recently, three Industrial Design students from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Design School have won one Bronze Award and two Honorable Mentions in the International Design Awards (IDA) 2024.
Created in 2007, The IDA recognises, celebrates and promotes exceptional design visionaries and works to discover emerging talent in Architecture, Interior, Product, Graphic, and Fashion Design worldwide.
Among them, the project “Palette: Where Memories Come Alive” designed by Sohyun Bahng has won the Bronze Award in Health & Life Science / Personal Health & Wellness Products category. Tutored by Professor Richard Appleby, Bahng designed an innovative smart product that reimagines hotel spaces into personalised, multi-sensory landscapes.
Bahng explains: “Users can select a mood keyword via an APP, and Palette will blend scents from five capsules, projects abstract visuals, and plays matching sounds or music.
“This creates a unique ambiance, transporting guests to diverse environments within a single room, providing a transformative, immersive experience that enriches their stay and offers a novel way to relax and rejuvenate.
“It addresses the blurred lines between work and rest in modern life, and offers mental relaxation and escapism.”
Palette: Where Memories Come Alive
Another project, “Out of Sight - Emoji Braille Cup Plug”, has won an honorable mention. It was designed by Yuting Cheng, a coffee cup plug designed to provide a more convenient coffee experience for the visually impaired.
Tutored by Vicente Esteban, Cheng says that the design cleverly combines emoji, Braille, and LEGO puzzles, which are common in daily life, to enable the visually impaired to easily recognise the temperature and type of coffee to enjoy the coffee culture better.
By touching the emoji and Braille on the cup plug, visually impaired people can quickly and accurately recognize the temperature and type of coffee without relying on visual cues.
Out of Sight - Emoji Braille Cup Plug
Another project that has won an honorable mention is “Living Rockery”, which was designed by Shanshan Li and tutored by Yubin Guo.
In China, rockery has always been regarded as classic decorations in gardens, which witnessed the passage of time and the change of history.
“Therefore, I designed a ‘living rockery’ which considers the rockery as the subject of observation instead of the object to be viewed, like an observer who observes humans silently, a creature that has not been noticed by us in daily life,” Li explains.
Living Rockery
Dr Luis Felipe Moreno Leyva, an assistant professor from the Department of Industrial Design and one of the coordinators to participate in this competition, says: “This important recognition of our students reflects their dedication, skills, creativity, and ability to tackle design challenges with innovative solutions. Their success in this internationally recognised competition highlights the quality of education and talent fostered at the XJTLU Design School.”
By Yi Qian
Images courtesy of Department of Industrial Design
26 Feb 2025