International design competition honors projects encouraging thought leadership in design
Design Awards Theme: “Where Innovation Meets Social Responsibility”
SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Slalom, the modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation, was honored at the second annual San Francisco Design Week Awards, hosted by the non-profit organization on June 20th at Pier 27, San Francisco. Slalom received the Communications Design award which recognized the Salesforce Vetforce project and the whole project team for its groundbreaking design and commitment to thought leadership in meeting the needs of a positive future for society.
Slalom was recognized for partnering with Salesforce to redesign its Vetforce program and community site. Over 200,000 veterans return to civilian life every year but end up underrepresented in the workplace. In 2018, Salesforce set a vision to train 35,000 veterans with Salesforce skills through a free program called Vetforce. With Vetforce, veterans can virtually learn at their own pace, accessing training, career opportunities, and peer support. The classes offer content ranging from Salesforce basics to civilian business and technical skills.
Scaling the program to meet this vision required changes to both the program structure and the technology supporting its members. With user-centered methods, Slalom engaged veterans to best understand where and how Vetforce could improve their future. The resulting program redesign simplified it into small and easy-to-access sections, making the entire journey transparent. Now, veterans are matched with other users for support, accountability, and knowledge sharing. Incentives are shown at the start of each career journey, and members’ progress can be tracked along with the next set of tasks.
Following the redesign, first course completion times were reduced from months to hours, and conversion rates have seen drastic improvements.
“We are extremely excited San Francisco Design Week Awards is returning this year,” says SFDW Director Dawn Zidonis. “As with last year, the quality of the many entries exceeded our expectations of our theme, ‘Innovation Meets Social Responsibility’. Congratulations to this year’s outstanding and diverse winners.”
San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), the premier gathering of the world’s most active design community, debuted the first annual San Francisco Design Week Awards at Pier 27 San Francisco in 2018. The theme, “Where Innovation Meets Social Responsibility” was met by award winners from leading design firms, in-house teams, and creative individuals, who were honored during a press preview at the SFDW Opening Night Reception at Pier 27, San Francisco.
The Design Week Awards reception brought together representatives from Slalom along with leading designers, architects, city officials, international guests, and consulate generals. The press preview began with a champagne toast by AIGA Executive Director Dawn Zidonis with community leaders, followed by photo opportunities of the winners and their awards.
SFDW Design Awards is an international design competition seeking to encourage thought leadership by supporting designers whose works can contribute towards a positive future for society. The Design Awards celebrates and recognizes exemplary work in all fields of design, including architecture, interior design, industrial design, communication design, and user experience design. Twenty-four winning projects and Eleven honorable mentions were selected by a jury comprised of distinguished professionals, who reviewed submissions from an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants from USA and Europe.
The winning projects were awarded to designers from USA, United Kingdom and Germany, from a pool of applicants in the following categories: Architecture – Altruistic; Architecture – Residential; Architecture – Commercial; Biotech; Communications Design,; FashTech; FinTech; Furniture Innovation; Future of Foods; Interior Design - Office: Commercial; Interior Design – Residential; Interior Design - Restaurant: Hospitality; IOT; Student Innovation; Urban Mobility; Virtual Tech; and Wild Card.
Each winning project displayed the following characteristics:
Impact—Design that represents a substantial shift in the way a particular process is created, executed, perceived, or experienced.
Singularity—Products and ideas that go above and beyond contemporaneous work being done within distinct fields of design.
Inclusiveness—Work that empowers those previously underrepresented in the design community and emboldens social mobility at all levels.
Social Responsibility—Design that offers solutions for people with needlessly insurmountable barriers to entry in all walks of life.
Ease of Use—Design that can be easily understood and applied by the end user.
Visual Appeal—Projects, ideas, and processes that not only solve problems, but do so with aesthetics that accentuate and elevate the experience from start to finish.
Feasibility—Design that can be sensibly funded, implemented and embraced.
The SFDW Design Awards esteemed jury comprised:
- John Maeda, Global Head, Computational Design and Inclusion, Automattic, Maeda Studio
- Katie Dill, VP of Design, Lyft
- Eche Martinez, Founder/Interior Designer, Eche
- Diane Dorrans Saeks, Interior Design, Author
- Shawn McLean-Bergel, Founder, Interior Design/Workplace Design, McLean-Bergel
- August de los Reyes, Director of User Experience, Google
- Michelle Hatton, Design Director/Senior Associate, Gensler
- Tung Chiang, Creative Lead, Studio Director, Heath Ceramics
- Tiffany Chu, Co-Founder, Remix
- Jonah Becker, VP of Design Fitbit
- Ana Arriola, General Manager and Partner Design Director, Microsoft
The winners’ entries are displayed prominently in a SFDW Design Awards Exhibition at Pier 27, San Francisco, from June 20 - 21, 2019 and featured permanently at SFDW online.
ABOUT San Francisco Design Week
The Future Started Here
Launched in 2006, San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is an essential week-long regional festival that showcases the unique intersection of ideas, design, business & entrepreneurism that makes the Bay Area the birthplace of the future.
Now a global phenomenon, San Francisco’s international success is born from a historically free-spirited entrepreneurialism, coupled with the imaginative vision of contemporary design and state-of-the-art technology. Pioneers of new ways of looking at the world, nimble Bay Area start-ups are now among the world’s most influential design-led companies, producing products, services and experiences that profoundly influence the daily lives of billions of people globally.
Through approximately 250 events, SFDW celebrates this spirit of newness by providing approximately 45,000 attendees unique access to exhibitions and conversations with the designers who are shaping the future — from architecture to fashion, product design to digital services, and everything in between.
San Francisco Design Week is a community event led by a team of advisors and a core committee which represents the diversity of design disciplines in the Bay Area. SFDW is organized by AIGA San Francisco, the professional association for design in partnership with IDSA, the Center for Architecture and AIA, SFFAMA, SEGD, SDN, IXDA, local consulates, design universities, neighborhood associations and museums.
2019 San Francisco Design Week Start Here: Campaign by Mucho.
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ABOUT Slalom
Slalom is a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. In cities across the US, UK, and Canada, Slalom's teams have autonomy to move fast and do what’s right. They’re backed by seven regional innovation hubs, a global culture of collaboration, and partnerships with the world’s top technology providers. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Seattle, Slalom has organically grown to over 6,500 employees. Slalom was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2019 and is regularly recognized by employees as a best place to work. Learn more at slalom.com.