After product and technology innovation, it is now
its design that is winning accolades for Tata Swach. The Industrial
Design Society of America (IDSA) has declared Tata Swach as
the winner of its Design of the Decade Award — Gold,
announced on December 8, 2010.
The 2010 Design of the Decade (DOD) winners feature a combination
of brave thinking and progressive action. Winners such as
Tata Swach®, Nike Considered footwear and Target’s
ClearRx reflect the smarter contributions design is making
to business and society on the whole.
Other DOD winners this time include Gillette Venus, Apple
Retail Stores, Amazon Kindle, Virgin Atlantic Upper Class
Suite. Past winners awarded by IDSA include familiar brands
such as BMW, Porsche, Apple products, Mercedes, Logitech,
Moen, and XO Laptop, among others. The Tata Swach design has
been co-created with M/s Design Directions and has 13 design
registrations to its credit.
Speaking on the achievement, Ashvini Hiran, COO, Consumer
Products business, Tata Chemicals, said, “Right from
the beginning, design was of prime importance in the development
of Tata Swach. For a product targeted at the non-user of water
purification system, it was imperative that the design was
not only high on user-friendliness but also high on elegance
and aesthetics. Today, across urban and rural India, users
have accepted Tata Swach with a sense of pride, and winning
the IDSA Design of the Decade Award is another endorsement
of its ‘thoughtful’ design.”
During the last 10 years, design has been leveraged with
increasing effectiveness to remedy poor user experiences,
rescue tired brands and empower developing economies. With
the Design of the Decade programme, IDSA honours the work
that best reflects this. IDSA jury chairperson Charles L Jones,
FIDSA, said, “Design of the Decade is a remarkable competition,
pitting the best designs as submitted by their designers against
stringent design and business criteria…demonstrating
a clear intersection between great design and great business
outcomes.”
