By Martin Vedris
ZURICH: A toaster that prints news, weather and images onto slices of toast is one of nine products competing for first place in the Electrolux DesignLab 2008 competition that will be judged in Zurich, Switzerland, on 9 October 2008.
An international jury of designers and other ‘experts’ will judge the entries and select the winner.
This is the competition’s sixth year and it was open to undergraduate and graduate industrial design students. The brief was to create “tomorrow’s home appliances for the internet generation”.
Students making submissions were told to aim the product for two to three years into the future and address food storage, cooking, and/or washing. More than 600 entries were received from 49 countries around the world.
The main judging criteria are originality of the concept, loyalty to Electrolux brand values, the creativeness of the design, and the degree to which the concept reflects modern concerns such as mobility, convenience, and sustainability.