2003 Catalyst Award Winner

The Design & Business Catalyst Award captures data on design impact and shows companies that design is fundamentally woven into business success. The Catalyst is the sister award to the premier annual Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA). Ravi Sawhney, IDSA, president and CEO, RKS Design, is the initiator of the catalyst. The second annual Catalyst Award is sponsored by IDSA and BusinessWeek, the premier business magazine.

The entry deadline for the 2004 Catalyst program is April 23, 2004 and late entries will be accepted until April 30, 2004. The 2004 Catalyst entries will consist of all IDEA winners in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

2003 Catalyst Award Winner
Delta Pull-Out Spray Project
Contact: Milthila Patel, Gibbs & Soell Public Relations, 212.697.2600, mpatel@gibbs-soell.com
Credit: Delta Faucet Co.

Delta's Pull-Out Spray series helped establish the firm as a market leader. Before the product's 2000 introduction, Delta had a 1.6% market share in the pull-out faucet arena. Two years after the introduction, Delta had 23.2% market share. Design played an integral role in the product, as the pull-out series was initially driven almost entirely by the ID department. As a result, the ID department is a contributor to the company's strategic product planning process.

Juror Dean Dipak Jain, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, agrees that the return on investment is one of this year's great ID success stories. "The huge ROI-2777% on the 470 model and 857% on the 474-transformed corporate planning for new products and more active involvement of ID in the process and the company.

The Delta Pull-Out Spray Project was a 2000 Bronze IDEA award winner in the Furniture category.

2003 Catalyst Award Winner
Nike Triax
Contact: Brett Lovelady, IDSA, ASTRO Studios Inc., 415.487.6787, brett@astrostudios.com
Credit: ASTRO Studios Inc. and Nike, Inc.
Client: Nike, Inc.

The Nike Triax Watch series was the first electronic product for the giant sports appeal firm. The product sells at an annual rate of 2 million units, generating nearly $100 million each year.

Spin off products include speed and distance versions, stopwatches and heart rate monitoring systems.

Catalyst Chair Carole Bilson, IDSA, director, product design & usability, Pitney Bowes believes the impact of the Nike Triax 250 sports series watch was felt throughout the industry. "It was not only a springboard for Nike's success within a new market, but it clearly spawned industry-wide styling trends and endless copies."

The Nike Triax has launched over 100 subsequent models over the past six years.

The Nike Triax was a 1999 IDEA Gold winner in the Consumer Products category and was awarded a Designs of the Decade Award in 1999.

2003 Catalyst Award, Honorable Mention
DynaMyte Augmentative Communicator
Contact: Tim Cunningham, IDSA, DaedalusExcel, 412.687.7000, tcunningham@daed.com
Designers: DaedalusExcel, LSB Technology and Dynavok Systems, Inc.
Client: DynaVok Systems, Inc.

The DynaMyte Communicator, a 2003 Catalyst Award Honorable Mention, is a portable, lightweight touch screen communicator for people with speech, language and learning disabilities. Since its launch in 1997, DynaMyte is the company's flagship product and DynaVok plans a lunch of four new communicators build on the DynaMyte's success. With good economic numbers and growth rate, the product was given an honorable mention mainly for its high social impact.

According to jurror Babette L. Strousse, IDSA, operations manager, Nokia Design, DynaMyte's design was a great advantage to the Catalyst's standard of a high level of social impact. "Its design detailing enables it to satisfy six diverse user categories. The product's benefit to a wide group of disabled people is very important.

The DynaMyte Augmentative Communicator was a 1998 Silver IDEA winner in the Medical & Scientific product category.