The Red Dot Design Award is an international product design and communication design prize awarded by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany. There are prize categories for product design, design agencies, and design concepts. Since 1955, designers and producers can apply for the prizes with the winners being presented in an annual ceremony. Winning products are presented in the Red Dot Design Museum on the premises of the historical Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen. In 2013, the Red Dot Design Museum Taipei was opened. The Red Dot Design Award had more than 15,500 submissions from 70 countries in 2014.
The Red Dot is awarded in three different disciplines:
The oldest of the three awards, the Red Dot Award: Product Design had been known as Design Innovationen until 2000. The competition is open to several fields of manufacturing, including furniture, home appliances, machines, cars and tools. The prize-winners include Inga Sempé in 2007 and Lunar Design in 2015.
The "Red Dot: Design Team of the Year" is a non-submission award that has been awarded annually since 1988 to design teams that have affected worldwide markets due to their design achievements. The prize-winners include companies such as Siemens in 1995, Apple in 2001, BMW in 2007, the Bose Design Center in 2008, Porsche in 2012, Lenovo in 2013, Veryday (2014), Bosch Home Appliances in 2015 and Ferrari in 2016.
Since 1993, the Red Dot award: Communication Design is awarded for achievements in the fields of corporate design, advertising, interactive media or sound design.