The German Design Award is the country s highest distinction in the field of design. It is generally known as the Prize of Prizes because no other design award sets such strict criteria on its entries. A company can only enter the competition for the Design Award if its product has already been awarded a national or international design prize. For 2011 more than 1,500 nominated entries were received in approximately equal number for the prize s two categories. Out of these, the jury awarded 49 winners 25 from product and 24 from communication design. This ratio is a testament that each prize was duly earned. In addition to documenting the competition and the winners, German Design Award 2011 also contains an evaluation of the current influences on design by the German Design Council, one of the world s leading competence centers for communication and know-how transfer in the design field. This detailed report, with a rich selection of images, puts recent design developments into context. It explains how the various design currents are related to each other and how they are expected to evolve over the next few years. With its almost 900 pages, German Design Award 2011 is an opulent collection of outstanding state-of-the-art solutions in product and communication design. The book not only provides insight into the work of current leaders in the field, but through its selection of winning design ideas, it also anticipates which challenges design will face in the future.