Hankook Tire wins iF Design Award 2021 in two categories

Nashville, Tenn.,  April 20, 2021 – Global leading tire company Hankook Tire has won ‘Winners‘ in the Professional Concept and Communication categories at the renowned iF Design Award 2021 for its Design Innovation Project 2020.

The Design Innovation is Hankook’s R&D project held every two years, in collaboration with one of the world’s leading design universities. Through joint research, the project puts forward a vision for future driving and solutions that tackle today’s challenges. For the Design Innovation 2020, Hankook collaborated with professors and students from the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Cincinnati. 

Under the theme ‘Urban Reshaping’, the project visualized transformation of cities geared by mobility reconfigured as part of living spaces rather than stand-alone vehicle in the future where augmented automation infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies such as eco-friendly technology, autonomous driving and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are to be adopted.

A modular platform which Hankook proposed and named as ‘Hankook Platform System (HPS)-Cell’ was recognized as the winner of the Professional Concept category. It is applied with ‘Hankook Innovative Performance (H.I.P)’ which represents Hankook’s technological breakthroughs and clearly elaborates that tire indeed sits at the center of the mobility. In particular, it received high scores in the Form criterion which evaluates aesthetics and execution as well as in the Differentiation criterion which evaluates individuality and intrinsic value.

The tire of HPS-Cell is an airless tire featuring unit-cell structure. It is a concept tire that uses sensor technology to not only identify tire treads and road conditions in real time, but also to respond to wear-out risks and change tread patterns according to the road condition utilizing variable wheels and optimized infrastructure.

In the meantime, the Design Innovation Film 2020, the concept film that had been produced to bring the conceptual tire and HPS-Cell platform to life, won the award in the Communication category. The film illustrates how an urban population in the future may use this kind of mobility platform. It was highly evaluated in the Impact criterion which evaluates sustainability and social contribution.

Jimmy Kwon, Vice President of Hankook Tire Brand Lab said, “It’s an honor to receive global recognition for our innovative design philosophy and capabilities.  This recognition demonstrates our design leadership in the industry as well as our vision for future mobility. By incorporating new ideas with our cutting-edge technology, we are continuously exploring design concepts for the next generation and strengthening our premium brand asset.”

The iF Design Award is one of the most prestigious design awards in the world alongside with the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and the Red Dot Design Award. It is presented by the International Forum Design, a German marketing consulting firm. The contributions are evaluated across  nine categories including Product, Packaging, Communication, Interior Architecture, Professional Concept, Service Design, Architecture, User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) on the basis of five criteria which are idea, form, function, differentiation and social impact. This year, more than 9,500 contributions were submitted from 52 countries.