Hyundai Motor Sweeps iF Design Award 2021, including Gold Prize for E-pit EV Charging Station

Hyundai Motor Company triumphed at the world-renowned International Forum (iF) Design Award 2021 this week with 14 awards for design excellence, including iF’s top Gold award for the ‘E-pit ultra-fast charger’ for electric vehicle (EV).

Hyundai Motor has now been honored at seven consecutive iF Design Award events, including three coveted Gold awards, which go to only 75 of the best designs among nearly 10,000 annual entries.

Hyundai triumphs across various disciplines such as product, communication, user interface, architecture, and professional concept. In particular, the company is recognized for its brand communication design with six awards in the communication category for the first time.

“This award is considered to be the part in which Hyundai has been fully recognized by global experts in the field of brand communication beyond product design,” said Thomas Schemera, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Hyundai Motor. “In the future, we will strengthen our activities to build an innovative brand image through creative and sustainable customer experiences.”

For the Gold: E-pit ultra-fast charger

Taking a rare Gold award, the ‘E-pit ultra-fast charger’ greatly improves user experience by solving several problems that are typically found in EV chargers such as bulky cables, complicated operation and service use, unclear charging status, hygiene (especially important during a pandemic) as well as production and maintenance.

Inspired by the pit stops of Formula One racing, Hyundai Design Center designed E-pit to offer fast, easy, convenient and premium services to EV customers. It’s easy to use and provides a simple yet powerful design solution that considers a variety of things from hygiene to maintenance.

“Innovative design comes out when the designer focuses on the user’s experience as the top priority,” said SangYup Lee, Senior Vice President and Head of Hyundai Global Design Center. “The E-pit design is the absolute result of our efforts to offer a new charging experience to customers.”

E-pit’s design considers various charging scenarios based on the Hyundai Motor’s human-centered philosophy. For example, its large roof provides a comfortable charging experience regardless of weather conditions. Moreover, the auto-positioning feature, which automatically moves the charging cable, allows diverse charging positions for different vehicles.

For More Design Excellence

• Discipline: Communication

‘Hyundai x BTS Goods’ is a global hydrogen campaign with merchandise designed to promote sustainability consciousness to MZ generations. Most of the merchandise uses repurposed car materials and upcycled flex fabrics. Eco bags are composed with innovative new materials like Tyvek, which leaves no environmental impact.

‘Hyundai Covid-19 Campaign: Safety First’ uses an interactive Hyundai logo to deliver clear COVID-19 prevention notifications. With this campaign, Hyundai enhanced its emotional connection with customers by showing its mindset about sustaining a better humanity.

‘2020 Hyundai Planner and Calendar’ has a cover made of recycled leather from seats collected in vehicle junkyards. Furthermore, in order to reduce the waste, it omitted the year ‘2020’ from the cover so that it could be re-used for more than a year by just replacing the inner sheets.

‘Road to Sustainability’ report uses templates for the layout of chapters in order to easily classify and focus on the content. Also, it delivers Hyundai Motor’s vision for sustainable future by using an eco-friendly paper and less ink by printing part of the book with only one color.

‘Channel Hyundai’ is a smart TV-based platform that allows users to experience its brand and products through ‘untouch’. Through this, customers can watch real-time events, such as new car releases on TV and various devices; contents such as culture, art and motor sports; and virtually experience the latest vehicles through the 3D configurator function. The designs for the TV application and media commerce platform of Channel Hyundai are recognized.

‘Hyundai connected car application, Bluelink’ provides seamless connectivity between car and user, linking infotainment and connected car services such as remote starting with improved usability and aesthetics.

• Discipline: Architecture

‘Hyundai Motor Company Global Learning Center’ is a visually stunning facility that focuses on vehicle maintenance training. It consists of a training building and a dormitory building with a double skin expanded metal façade system to create integrated yet separated vehicle passages, well-ventilated classrooms, quiet and naturally lit interior spaces.

• Discipline: User Interface

‘Hyundai Aqua Design Infotainment System’ establishes a unique visual style optimized for a horizontal wide display that makes a variety of information sources more comfortable to see.

‘Genesis Copper Design Infotainment System’ is featured in 2020 Genesis models such as G80  GV80 and GV70. The copper theme symbolizes athletic grace. The specialized theme is the result of optimizing the digital environment for a moving vehicle.

‘Channel Hyundai’ gets the nod in the user interface as well as communication disciplines. It is recognized in this category as a video retail channel.

• Discipline: Professional Concept

‘Hyundai Prophecy’ concept forges a strong emotional connection between humans and automobiles, giving more value to the customer’s every moment. Its timeless exterior design is reminiscent of perfectly weathered stone, with a clean and simple One Curve streamline that stretches from the front to the rear. Its interior is a Lifestyle Space using ‘softer elements’ of design. Electrification and self-driving technology redefine interior space utilization completely, using Joysticks to provide a completely new fun driving experience.

‘ALICE: AR Location-based Information-Centric Explorer’ is the integrated Metaverse platform that supports various multimodal services from last-mile services to autonomous driving. Alice provides context-based information for the user’s trip as a one integrated solution with the most advanced feature for finding the final destination and displaying precise Point of Interest (POI) information. This highly anticipated information platform brings an all-new connected experience to the user, also as a creator, through the combination of mobility service and AR technology. In line with Alice, Hyundai will continuously secure and commercialize its futuristic technologies through open innovation.

iF Design Award goes digital

The iF Design Award is among the largest and most important design competitions in the world, founded in 1954 by iF International Forum Design GmbH in Hanover, one of the world’s leading independent design institutions.

This year, the competition, for which more than 9,500 entries were submitted by participants from 52 countries, featured several innovations. These include a digital preliminary round (‘Online Preselection’), in which half of the submissions are selected for the final round (‘Final Jury’), a transparent evaluation of all categories, including new disciplines ‘user experience’ (UX) and ‘user interface’ (UI). The other categories are Product, Communication, Packaging and Service Design, Architecture, Interior Design and Professional Concepts. This year, the iF jury comprised 98 independent international design experts. All award-winning products are published in the ‘iF World Design Guide’ (ifworlddesignguide.com) and in the iF Design App.