Carbon neutral toothbrushes made from wood waste, transformable smart homes with an adaptable floor plate, and imaginative wall tiles using ceramic residue were some of the entries at the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2017 that won the jury over for their ability to successfully integrate good design with a sense of purpose.

This year’s Red Dot Award: Product Design attracted over 5,500 entries from 53 countries with 1,405 designs winning the prestigious Red Dot Award, and 102 making the final cut for the ultimate accolade, the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award.

While good design is the basic premise of the Red Dot Awards, it’s the designer’s ability to transform a simple concept into a game-changer of a product that creates a winning design. A quick look at the winners’ list would indicate a preference for popular themes such as sustainability, environment and minimalism as well as a few new design trends such as robotics and technology. Lightweight and adaptable designs and material innovations were some of the other noticeable trends among this year’s winners.

In a process spanning several days, the Red Dot jury, comprising 39 experts from around the world, convened in Essen, Germany to consider and evaluate each entry primarily on the basis of high design quality and innovation. Jury member Professor Renke He from China, an expert in industrial design, explains: “Design quality decides the quality of the user experiences of products or services of the companies; it is the key issue for a company’s economic success.”

A toothbrush made using wood waste from sustainable forestry impressed the international jury enough to award the entry the Red Dot: Best of the Best. Designed by biobrush GmbH, Germany, the toothbrush is virtually carbon neutral with biodegradable paints and plastic, while its packaging, also based on cellulose, can be composted in the garden.

A transformable smart home by Shanghai Huadu, China directly addresses the high cost of housing in big cities with a movable floor plate that allows the user to adapt the limited space to fit different living scenarios using a mobile phone.

The Red Dot: Best of the Best winner of 2017 in the ‘Robot technology’ category, PuduBOT is designed to assist wait staff in restaurants, by bringing orders to the table using high-precision laser radar technology and interacting with guests using facial expressions and voice.

Winners of the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award 2017 will be recognised at the Red Dot Gala in Essen’s Aalto-Theater on 3 July 2017.

The exhibition ‘Design on Stage – Winners Red Dot Award: Product Design 2017’ will be held from 4 July until 6 August 2017 at the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen, Germany.