We think it a particularly cruel irony that the Good Design awards ("The World's Most Prestigious Global Awards for New Product Design and Graphics"), the program founded in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., are announced on one of the most hideous websites we've seen in a long time. (If you listen very carefully, you can hear the web design team over at the Cooper-Hewitt chortling at the circa-1999 aesthetic of their design award counterpart's electronic presence.) But we digress.

Administered by the Chicago Athenaeum in conjunction with the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies, and the Metropolitan Arts Press, the awards were judged using Saarinen and Co.'s original criteria, which assess innovation, form, materials, construction, concept, function, and utility. "Product appearance and aesthetic appeal is also considered," notes the website.

The jury sifted through entries from 33 countries (projects could be from 2005 to the present) and bestowed Good Design awards on more than 400 of them in 20 categories. As for the winners, we'll highlight those in several categories in the next post, but they ranged from the expected--iPod and iPhone, a bunch of stuff from OXO Good Grips, the T-Table and Glove chair by Patricia Urquiola (or "Patricia Urguiola," as the crazy website would have it), the Boeing 787--to some fresh choices, including Nienkamper's Yabaco chair (pictured above, at right) and one of our favorite fabrics, Tela-Baja (pictured above, at left) from German firm nya nordiska textiles. More Good Design coming your way in the next post!