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The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are various awards funded and bestowed by the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
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National Design Awards
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The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are various awards funded and bestowed by the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. There are seven official design categories, and three additional awards when applicable.
The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are various awards funded and bestowed by the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
There are seven official design categories, and three additional awards when applicable. Any supplemental awards deemed appropriate may be awarded at the discretion of the acting jury or institution.
In 2000, the awards and associated programs were introduced as an official project of the White House Millennium Council. In 2025, the award program celebrated its twenty-fifth year.
The 2023 National Design Awards jury, chaired by Dung Ngo, editor in chief, August Journal, also included Tiffany Chu, chief of staff to the mayor, City of Boston; Carla Fernández Tena, creative director, Carla Fernández; Noah Schwarz, director of product design, Herman Miller; and Sara Zewde, principal and assistant professor of practice, Studio Zewde and Harvard University.
In 2025, the selection committee was helmed by Smithsonian Design Museum director Maria Nicanor and Maurice Cox, chair of the 2025 National Design Awards jury.
The 2026 jury was chaired by Aric Chen, director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, and also included Liz Danzico, vice president of design at Microsoft AI; Patricia Moore, president of MooreDesign Associates; Henk Ovink, executive director of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water; Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology; and Thomas Woltz, senior principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.
Individual candidates must be citizens or long-term residents of the United States and have been practicing design for at least 7 years. For any corporation or institution, it must have its headquarters in the United States. The honorees are selected upon a body of realized work, not for any one specific project.
Potential candidates are proposed by an official Nominating Committee and are invited to submit materials for a jury's review. Submissions consist of resumes, portfolios, publications by and about the candidates, and professional-quality audio-visual samples.
The award recipients come from a range of design disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, fashion, communications, media, interiors, digital, and production design.
With its public programs, including ones skewed toward students, the National Design Awards are meant to highlight how design impacts daily life and "aim to increase national awareness about the impact of design in everyday life."
According to the Smithsonian, the awardees "are recognized for design innovation and impact in improving the world."
The program highlights a range of design disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, fashion, communications, media, interiors, digital, production design, and in 2025 for climate action design.
For Maria Nicanor, director of the Smithsonian Museum, the award series is about how design "touches all aspects of our lives every single day—from the buildings we live, learn and work in, to the physical and digital systems that deliver our basic services, the clothes we wear, the spaces we gather in or the creativity and beauty that help us understand ourselves as a nation—and yet design's undeniable influence can go unseen."
The National Design Awards program include a ceremony and gala.
According to Cooper Hewitt, the program also "connects the public with award winners through free virtual talks, workshops, resources, and more."
Source: National Design Awards (CC BY-SA)
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