2022 DAME Design Award nominees revealed
METSTRADE, the organiser of the DAME Award, has announced that 48 products from a total field of 104 entries spanning 14 countries have been nominated to enter the final rounds of the 2022 DAME Award competition.
This year marked a welcome full return of an international jury of leading design and user experts to the DAME Award’s specially created assessment room at RAI Amsterdam.
Following scrutiny of submitted entry information pre-visit, the eight members of the jury, chaired by yacht designer Andre Hoek, gathered to spend two days looking at products in detail.
It is from this list of 48 nominations that the winners from seven categories and the ultimate accolade of the 31st-anniversary DAME Design Award winner will emerge. The jury will also name its first discretionary Environmental Design Award winner this year.
All nominees and winners will be celebrated at the METSTRADE 2022 Breakfast Briefing in the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre on 15 November, 2022, featuring a keynote speech by electric aircraft visionary Cory Combs.
All DAME-nominated products will feature on a special display at METSTRADE at the heart of the show in the Elicium (Hall 13). Alongside, the METSTRADE Theatre will host daily discussion panels from this year’s DAME Design Award’s category and outright winners.
“It is well known that the marine leisure equipment sector has been under severe pressure for the past two years,” says Andre Hoek, chair of the DAME jury. “It has needed to satisfy a strong surge in market demand while dealing with significant supply chain challenges. Ordinarily, you might expect this to completely pull the focus away from R&D. Impressively though, many of this year’s very wide field of entries showed evidence of ongoing investment in better design, which is vital for the longer-term future of the whole industry.
“The DAME Design Award has a long history of setting the bar high, and it is not easy to satisfy all the design criteria we consider – including function, form, environment, innovation, and price to performance. The nominees listed here are to be congratulated on meeting the scrutiny of our jury members, and I look forward to finalising the results and announcing the best of the best at the Breakfast Briefing.”
METSTRADE director Niels Klarenbeek adds: “For more than three decades, the DAME Design Award has been very much a part of the METSTRADE DNA. It encourages design improvement leading to excellence in the experience of water sports enthusiasts, greater efficiency for manufacturing operations and improvement in environmental impact.
“The DAME Design Award is a significant high-water mark for many equipment manufacturers and suppliers around the world. We look forward to celebrating once again the significant design successes of our industry at METSTRADE .”
2021’s overall winner, Volvo Penta, recognises that the essence of the DAME is “not just innovative design but a dedication to continuous improvements in all aspects of the creative process”.
