Waterloo, Ont.-based mobile phone manufacturer BlackBerry is being recognized with three awards for outstanding product design.
The company’s BlackBerry Q10, BlackBerry Q5 and BlackBerry Z30 smartphones are each being recognized with the prestigious Red Dot Award for their high quality design. The awards received nearly 5,000 entries from over 50 countries, and picked winners based on the quality and innovative strength of each product.
“We pride ourselves on industrial design that is simple and intuitive in functionality, while maintaining iconic and familiar elements such as our keyboard and productivity-based user experience,” said Brian Paschke, senior industrial designer, portfolio direction at BlackBerry, in a statement. “While our smartphones have evolved over time, we remain focused on being highly detail oriented in order to deliver modern and high quality devices.”
The three handsets being honoured are all part of BlackBerry’s next generation product line running its BlackBerry 10 operating system.
“The BlackBerry Design Team is honored to accept the prestigious Red Dot Product Design Award for the Q10, Q5 and Z30,” said Alison Phillips, managing director of industrial design at BlackBerry. “This award is a welcomed addition to the Red Dot Product Design award the team received for the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone last year.”
The Red Dot Awards will be presented at the Red Dot Gala in Essen, Germany and the award-winning BlackBerry handsets will be part of a special exhibit at the Red Dot Museum this summer. The special exhibition recognizes innovation in contemporary design worldwide with some 2,000 exhibits.
The BlackBerry Q10.
“The 40 experts assessed the quality of the entries with the utmost care and attention,” said Peter Zec, initiator and CEO of Red Dot. “Due to their backgrounds, they also assessed the special cultural aspects of the designs from 53 countries. But only the best products receive an award from the jury. This is especially reflected in the percentage of successful entries in the Red Dot Award, which is much smaller in contrast to other international design competitions. Therefore, the winners can be proud of their achievements – with their entries; they stood out from the rest and were able to pass the test in front of the critical eyes of the experts. This success will be perceptible during the Red Dot Gala, when the laureates will receive the recognition of the international audience.”