Good Design Award

The Long Life Design Award has been developed for many years through dialogue with manufacturers and users, and society, and is an award for honoring designs that will become the cornerstone of living and society and that are desired to continue to play the role in the future and designs with the power to continue to be a standard beyond value that changes with the times.
The eligible designs for the award are products or services widely endorsed by users and consumers and are assumed to have been continuously provided for more than 10 years at the time of the review and continue to be provided in the future.
Long Life Design Award judging committee members select and judge designs recommended by a wide range of general users through the website and decide the recipients of the award.

The 2018 Good Design/Long Life Design Award started reception of recommendations on April 5 and 274designs were recommended from those users.
Of these, 36 that passed the first screening by the judging committee and whose business entries responded to the application were nominated for this year's Good Design/Long Life Design Award.
The nominated designs were open to the public at GOOD DESIGN Marunouchi, and a total of 1,544 votes were voted from visitors for the nominated designs.

A second screening with reference to judging information, actual items, and supporting comments from visitors was performed, and as a result, 19 were awarded the 2018 Long Life Design Award.

Long Life Design Award 2018 results / (year-on-year rise)
Total number of recommendations : 274（+18)
Number of entries : 36（±0)
Awarded entries : 19（-6)

List of Awards

Long Life Design Award Screening Comments

Seiichi Saito

Jury member of Long Life Design Award 2018
Vice Chair of Good Design Award 2018
Creative/Technical Director

I became a judge for the Long Life Design Award for the first time this year. I felt that the border of the Long Life Design Award has expanded because of the addition of a category characteristic of the year 2018. Buildings such as the Tokyo Tower, media contents such as Gundam and Godzilla, and apps like "Ekispert" look like a new field, but I think what we have been familiar with in life for more than ten years has created a new appearance of the Long Life Design Award.
"Renovation continues for unchanged existence." - Many designs that received the award has been constantly changing, and they have the power to continue to evolve in the future as well.
I hope many works will be submitted next year, too, which will bring about new points of view and definitions.

Mineaki Saito

Jury member of Long Life Design Award 2018
Representative, Scenery International PTE.Ltd.,

Last year the pedestrians' paradise of Ginza, something other than an "object," received the Long Life Design Award for the first time. It looks like this Long Life Design Award has entered a new age.
As a matter of fact, this year, an application such as "Ekispert," characters such as "Godzilla" and "Gundam," and a systematized service like "Suica" received this award. I feel this suggests that the modern concept of design itself has expanded.
This year, evolving little by little to adapt to the change of time such as changing materials to take environmental issues into consideration has become a new point to be evaluated even in the case of a product with which we have been familiar for more than 10 years. However, at the same time, an object whose background thought or story is high in originality failed to receive the award if the object lacked beauty when it was materialized. From this, it is clear that "Good Design" seeks beauty just as it always did, whether it is software or hardware

Fumie Shibata

Jury member of Long Life Design Award 2018
Chair of Good Design Award 2018
Product Designer

What did strong designs that have not changed since they were first on sale bring to our life after many years? Why are they still loved? I feel that in addition to these points of view, importance is place on "beauty" in the 2018 Long Life Design Award. We were able to hold a discussion about not just tangible things but also intangible things like contents, seeking beauty as it is.
What we awarded with the Long Life Design Award has formed a line-up of things that can serve as models for the future designs such as products with beautiful improvements that keep their original image while adopting materials that consider environmental issues without sticking to the past texture.

Matsutaro Fukumitsu

Jury member of Long Life Design Award 2018
President, Fukumitsuya Sake Brewery

The area for the Long Life Design Award has expanded since last year. Last year, "pedestrians' paradise" was added to the area, and this year the area widened from objects to events, then to character culture, and "Godzilla" was added. I am looking forward to seeing applications next year. What has me worried is that in the case that the original design of a product has been developed in various ways later, there are some cases in which the design falls apart. There are many cases in which design is sacrificed in favor of the sales promotion effect by squeezing distinguishing elements into the original design. It is understandable, considering the retail situations, but it is necessary to have designing capabilities that make it possible to deal with such situations.

2018 Long Life Design Award Schedule

General nomination (April 4 - May 23)
Nominations were received via the Good Design Award website from product users, designers and corporations.

Decision on nominee longlist (June 1)
Judges for Long Life Design Award selected finalists from the nominated designs and compiled a longlist.

Decision on applicants (June 30)
Regarding the selected judging subjects, GDA office invited principal implementing businesses to apply for Long Life Design Award and confirmed the entries.

Good Design Long Life Design Award Nominated Design Exhibition (July 27 -September 2 at GOOD DESIGN Marunouchi)
Held a public exhibition at GOOD DESIGN Marunouchi for applied judging subjects, and collected the comment from general public.

Long Life Design Award Panel (August 20)
At GOOD DESIGN Marunouchi, Judged for the Long Life Design Award reviewed actual products, panels, etc., and decided on the winner of the Long Life Design Award.

Long Life Design Award winner announcement (October 3)
2018 Long Life Design Award to be announced

Long Life Design Award Exhibition "LONG LIFE DESIGN EXHIBITION 2018" (Octorber 31 - November 4 at Tokyo Midtown. GOOD DESIGN EXHIBITION)

Long Life Design Award Winner Celebration Party (December 3)

Publication of the Good Design Yearbook (March 2019)