National Design Award Trophy

On October 20, 2011, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum unveiled a new trophy for the National Design Awards.

Originally designed in silicon carbide by William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand and Jeffrey Tyson in 2000, the trophy was launched as a part of an “asterisk” design exploratory. A decade later, the trophy was interpreted in a new material by Smart Design in 2010. Now, for the 2011 awards, Corning Museum’s GlassLab undertook a new interpretation of the “asterisk” trophy in glass.

Here it is described by Unbeige: “The new trophy has twists of its own, deviating from corporate America’s transparent-tombstone approach to award design with striated glass that hints at the hand of the designer (and suggests an asterisk plucked from the tundra). And winners can get an instant ego boost when they glance into the trophy. The top is cut at a 50-degee angle that allows viewers to peer into the glass and see their reflection.”