Designs of the Year 2012

While the V&A in West London celebrates magnificent developments in British design since the end of the war — actually with a far more balanced approach on the years that followed the 1948 Olympics than on those preceding London 2012 —, the Design Museum on the south bank of the Thames is hosting its customary annual recognition of the best designs in "Designs of the Year", or the Design Oscars, with 54 excellent jury members and seven categories.

Now in its fifth year, this exhibition is once again an accurate snapshot of today's design/s and — although understanding the criteria steering the selection can be a challenge — the award must be credited for favouring single pieces that fuel dreams. The Fashion category, for instance, features the project for the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the Met, Vivienne Westwood's ethical Africa bags and the LN-CC concept boutique; simultaneously, an automatic defibrillator, an earthquake-proof table by Israel's Brutter and Bruno and a spectacular ambulance redesigned by an RCA student — which in a similar Italian selection would have been relegated to a minor category — each find their own space.

Unlike previous years, when the main categories were flanked by fringe themes of the curator's choice — e.g. last year, city, play, education, home and sharing —, this year we find less than piercingly defined motivations that reward selections responding to people's needs, inspired by nature, with hi-tech content or sheer beauty of form. This just goes to show that, when you try and describe the excellence condensed in a product, you rarely manage to say more than the project ought self-evidently to do itself.

Perhaps in an attempt to facilitate an internal reading of the exhibition choices and the jury's preferences, this year's innovation consists in infographics above the seven theme islands illustrating: the percentages of different materials employed (e.g. 25% of the architecture projects are in wood), chosen types (e.g. 47% of the furniture designs are chairs), geographical origin (e.g. 53% of the graphic-design projects are by London firms), areas of impact (in which, in the case of transport design, artistic content and innovation are clearly on the same level, with utility and social ends falling by the wayside), client types (only 27% of the fashion designs were developed for mass production) and even the statistic on lifesaving designs (a good 17% of the product designs).

It is a pity that such useful and penetrating graphs merely rehash information from within the award system and not, for example, the broader, and objectively ambitious, spectrum of the whole year's production. It is a pity that some data only emerges as an afterthought, by subtraction: only one of the projects selected is by an Italian company, the Osso chair by Mattiazzi, nominated, surprise surprise, by Italy's Emilia Terragni (last year, Francesca Picchi opted for the chair Gamper designed for Magis); there are no Italian designers (except FormaFantasma, but they are based in Eindhoven); only five designs are French (one graphic, one fashion, one transport and two by the Bouroullec brothers); apart from an overwhelming majority of British designs (we have lost count of those by the duo Barber Osgerby, winners of this year's edition), a lion's share is taken up by US design, and Japan has virtually disappeared, abandoning the digital and graphic categories to pop up only under fashion and furniture (Issey Miyake's Ready-to-wear Collection and Morrison's Lightwood seating for Maruni).

The "Designs of the Year 2012" is not — unlike previous years — sponsored by Brit Insurance. Therefore, it is more declaredly what it has always been, a well-pondered award organised and curated by the true home of British, not just Victorian, Mod, Punk or Industrial design — the Design Museum. Not at all sensational — even the exhibition design is the clear-cut, low budget and precise one seen in previous years — and apart from very few surprises, the designs on show are those already seen during the year which is as it should be and gratifying for attentive visitors.

Some disappointed punters may lament the lack of great surprises or conspicuous absences and, indeed, given its eclectic concept, the award tends to reward certain categories over others as viewing a poster illustration in a glass case is less fun than interacting with an app on the latest iPad or a maxi-screen. Yet, not a single design is present without fully deserving it, even though it may not save anyone's life.

Overall winner – Design of the Year 2012
The London 2012 Olympic Torch, UK
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, commissioned by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics Games

Category winners:
Architecture Award 2012
London 2012 Velodrome, London, UK
Hopkins Architects

Digital Award 2012
Microsoft Kinect and Kinect SDK
Microsoft Games Studios, Microsoft Research and Xbox, UK and USA

Fashion Award 2012
132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE
Miyake Design Studio, Tokyo, Japan

Furniture Award 2012
1.3 Chair, Balsa Furniture, London, UK
Kihyun Kim

Graphics Award 2012
Nokia Pure Font, London, UK
Dalton Maag

Product Award 2012
The London 2012 Olympic Torch, UK
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, commissioned by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics Games

Transport Award 2012
Re-design for Emergency Ambulance, London, UK
Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and Vehicle Design Department, Royal College of Art

The Design Awards 2012 jury
Ilse Crawford, Evgeny Lebedev, Henrietta Thompson, Hella Jongerious, Sir George Iacobescu

Designs of the Year 2012
Design Museum
Shad Thames, London
Through 4 July