The Cooper-Hewitt Picks the Best in American Design

The 2010 National Design Awards were announced yesterday by Bill Moggridge, the director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The awards, which are the highest recognition of design excellence in the country, will be presented in New York on October 14, with First Lady Michelle Obama serving as the Honorary Patron.

Here’s a complete list of the 2010 National Design Award recipients:

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Lifetime Achievement Award: Jane Thompson

In a career spanning 60 years, the editor, designer, and planner Jane Thompson has explored how design relates to human well-being, urban life, and the global environment. She was a founding editor of I.D. magazine; a long-time collaborator on the famous post-war design emporium Design Research; and the founder of the Thompson Design Group, which has been a pioneer in urban-revitalization projects. Her book, Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes, will be published in September.

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Design Mind: Ralph Caplan

A former editor of I.D. magazine, Ralph Caplan has been thinking, writing, and speaking about design for more than 50 years, and has collaborated with designers on exhibitions, films, and publications. He is the author or editor of several books, including By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons and Cracking the Whip: Essays on Design and Its Side Effects.

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Corporate and Institutional Achievement: U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)

Since its founding in 1993, the not-for-profit USGBC has developed a variety of programs and services, most importantly the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building certification program. Currently, the USGBC comprises 80 local affiliates, more than 17,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 140,000 LEED Professional Credential holders.

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Architecture Design: KieranTimberlake

The Philadelphia-based architecture firm founded by Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake is noted for its integration of research with design, guided by a deep environmental ethic. KieranTimberlake’s clients include Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Make It Right Foundation. The firm recently won a competition to design the new U.S. Embassy in London.

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Communication Design: Stephen Doyle

The creative director at Doyle Partners, Stephen Doyle has a unique ability to give words a deeper meaning in graphic form. Notable clients include The New York Times, AIGA, Vanity Fair, and the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Doyle previously served as the art director of M&Co. and as an associate art director of Rolling Stone and Esquire magazines.

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Fashion Design: Rodarte

Founded in 2005 by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, Rodarte creates meticulous and mesmerizing designs that meld strong statements of color with unusual fabric treatments and combinations. Its many influences include border towns, California condors, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, and Japanese horror films. Rodarte’s designs are in the permanent collections of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum.

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Interaction Design: Lisa Strausfeld

An interaction-design trailblazer and a partner at Pentagram, Lisa Strausfeld is an expert at information visualization. Strausfeld’s work, such as the graphical user interface for One Laptop Per Child, lies at the intersection of physical and virtual space. In addition to broad publication of her design work, Strausfeld holds four patents relating to user interfaces and intelligent information search and retrieval.

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Interior Design: William Sofield

Known for a unique take on modernism and a holistic approach to craft and materials, William Sofield’s projects have included more than 900 retail boutiques around the world for Tom Ford, Bottega Veneta, Yves St. Laurent, and Gucci. Sofield also donates design services and strategic support to many not-for-profit organizations, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Alzheimer’s Association, and AIDS Project Los Angeles.

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Landscape Design: James Corner Field Operations

Established in 1998 by James Corner, Field Operations’ practice has raised the visibility and efficacy of landscape architecture in shaping and enriching people’s lives, particularly in urban environments and the public realm. Its diverse projects include the design of the High Line in New York, City, the pool decks and gardens of City Center in Las Vegas, Race Street Pier in Philadelphia, and Lake Ontario Park in Toronto.

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Product Design: Smart Design

The multidisciplinary consultancy Smart Design uses insight and innovation to develop and design consumer products that meet people’s needs, answer market demands, and solve critical manufacturing challenges. Projects are designed with a focus on connecting with the end user and have included Oxo Good Grips kitchen tools, the SmartGauge instrument cluster for the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the New York City taxi graphics, medical devices for UCB Group, and Hewlett-Packard Photosmart compact photo printers.