You may have noticed the banner for the 2015 Core77 Design Awards that has been running at the top of the sidebar here at Bicycle Design for the last month or so. If you haven’t submitted an entry yet, don’t worry… there is still time. The regular deadline ends March 24^th, and you will have a week after that to make the late deadline if necessary.  For any of you not familiar with the annual competition:

“The Core77 Design Awards is an annual celebration of excellence in all areas of design. With 14 categories that span both traditional and progressive applications, this is the 5th year Core77 enlisted an international jury of design experts to review and unearth creative and innovative designs from all over the globe. This is an opportunity for students and established professionals alike to gain a broader audience for their work as well as valuable feedback from design experts. Unlike other systematic design competitions, the Core77 Design Awards focus on revealing the ideas and methods that fuel design progress and bring us closer to the future.”

One of those 14 categories is transportation, defined on the site as:

 “Vehicles, systems or modes of transportation used to get people or objects from one place to another, for private, public, commercial or industrial purposes. Examples include: planes, trains, automobiles, buses, bikes, boats, mass transit systems, transportation infrastructure, etc.”

I am honored to be serving as the transportation jury captain this year, and I am very excited about the talented team of judges who will be working with me to review the entries (which hopefully will include quite a few bikes and other types of human powered vehicles).  You can go to the Core77 Design Awards website and click on the Transportation link to see the jury bios, but I also want to introduce the other four jurors here.

Torgny Fjeldskaar, Design Director, BMC Switzerland

Torgny initially studied mechanical engineering and earned a master’s degree at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Later on he studied Transport Vehicle Design at Elisava Design School in Barcelona.

After graduating he started working for Mazda at their European design center in Frankfurt, then moved to Cannondale Bicycles, where he was heading up the industrial design team. Five years later he went back to automotive design at BMW in Munich, and last year he returned to bicycles again and is now Design Director at BMC Switzerland. Torgny was awarded “Young Designer of the Year” by the Norwegian Design Council in 2009, along with numerous IF Awards for his work at Cannondale.

As a side-project Torgny has co-founded laisr.com, a small manufacturer of high-tech furniture. As a designer and design teacher he is interested in all sorts of transport vehicles and how urban design influences our habits and needs with respect to transportation.

Torgny can be found on Twitter at @torgnyf.

Melissa Bruntlett, Co-Founder, Modacity

Melissa Bruntlett is co-founder of Modacity, a multi-service consultancy, focused on inspiring healthier, happier, simpler forms of urban mobility through words, photography and film. She is a regular contributor for Momentum Magazine, The Vancouver Courier, Vanity Buzz and most recently Grist. Melissa is very active in her community, advocating for walking, cycling and public transportation improvements, and works as producer and project manager for Modacity’s film campaigns. Her most recent work includes developing a marketing campaign for a Transit Referendum in the Metro Vancouver area. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her husband and two children, and makes riding a bicycle or walking throughout her beautiful city a daily activity.

Follow her on Twitter at @mbruntlett.

Rob Cotter, Chief Designer and CEO, Organic Transit

Rob is Chief Designer and CEO of Organic Transit, maker of the ELF, the most efficient vehicle on the planet. Built in Durham, NC the ELF is a new category in urban transportation, is solar assisted and gets the equivalent of 1800 mpg. ELF is the first in a line of vehicles that fill the space between a bicycle and a car. Rob has worked for Porsche, BMW, McLaren, AMG and Shimano. With DuPont and GE, he developed new ways of molding plastics and composite materials. He directed the American Solar Cup, the first solar car race in the US. He also served as an advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown, a Creative Director and a documentary producer. He also worked with Anita Roddick, CEO of The Body Shop launching environmental and human rights campaigns

Eric Stoddard,  Design Manager, Ford Motor Company

Eric Stoddard is an accomplished automotive, transportation and product designer, with 17 years experience at major automotive OEMs including Ford, Hyundai and Chrysler.

At Ford, Eric is responsible for mid-size passenger car exterior design, including Taurus and Fusion. He played a key role in establishing an all-new advanced design team in Detroit. Advanced programs include the next generation Fiesta, Focus, Mustang, Expedition and Navigator.

At Hyundai, production automotive designs included the 2013 Santa Fe, 2011 Elantra, Genesis Coupe, Tucson, Equus, HCD9 Talus concept (2006), and 2007 Elantra. At Chrysler he conceived and led the exterior design of the Crossfire (concept and production), Pacifica and the Dodge SRT-4.

At Ford, Eric is responsible for mid-size passenger car exterior design, including Taurus and Fusion. He played a key role in establishing an all-new advanced design team in Detroit. Advanced programs include the next generation Fiesta, Focus, Mustang, Expedition and Navigator.

In addition to his automotive work, Eric consults in product design as founder of SpeedStudio Design. He has a passion for bicycle design and alternative transportation, having won awards for bicycle design concepts at Red Dot and the Taipei International Bicycle Show. He actively participates in design education, having taught courses and held demos at Cleveland Institute of Art, College for Creative Studies, Lawrence Technological University and Art Center College of Design. Eric holds Bachelor Fine Art from Cleveland Institute of Art, Class of 1998.

So, there you have it… the 2015 jury for the Core77 Design Awards transportation category. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you probably recognized a few of the names. I have mentioned Eric’s work on Bicycle Design a few times, and he has contributed guest posts from the Taipei Cycle Show. Torgny served on the jury (and provided the prize) for the 2009 design competition that I staged at BicycleDesign,net, and I have featured his work (and that of his team) several times, most recently here. I have posted about Rob’s company, Organic Transit, a few times, and have linked to his excellent TEDx talk titled, I’d Bike to Work if Only…   (worth a watch if you haven’t already seen it).  Lastly, there is Mellissa… I don’t believe I have mentioned her in a post before, but I greatly admire the work that she and her husband Chris are doing with Modacity. On the Bicycle Design Facebook and Twitter accounts, I recently shared a great article that they wrote together for Grist titled, 6 reasons why cargo bikes are the next big thing.

Thanks to the other jurors for participating! I believe we have a very talented group, and I am excited to be working with them all. I really hope that we will receive quite a few entries from the community of Bicycle Design readers, so I encourage each of you reading this to review the completion details here… and get to work on your designs for sustainable human powered transportation solutions.

Follow Bicycle Design on Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest , and Google + … and subscribe to the email newsletter.