By Craig Zammit
SYDNEY: The Breville BBL600 Ikon Kinetix blender scored bronze at the recent 2007 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA ’07), marking the product’s third accolade for the year.
“It is a great honour for an Australian company like Breville to be recognised for its design excellence and capabilities when competing against the some of the best designers in the world,” said Breville innovation director, Richard Hoare.
“Designing high performance, easy to use, stylish appliances which meet the everyday needs of our customers is a constant focus for the design team.
“The two years of research and development were spent testing a multitude of common and not so common blending tasks so that we could develop a blender that can tackle just about anything.
“We tried everything from the basics, such as smoothies and crushing ice to pureeing pesto and mincing meat, to ensure the blender delivered consistent results,” said Hoare.
Earlier in the year the BBL600 won an Australian Design Mark as well as being nominated for inclusion in the permanent Powerhouse Museum collection.
Co-sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), IDEA ‘07 received 1,691 entries from over 30 countries, helping to foster business and public understanding of the impact of industrial design excellence on the quality of life and the economy.
The BBL600 was assessed on criteria which included aesthetics, excellence, rugged engineering, enhanced usability and strategic business development by a selected group of 18 leading thinkers in the design world.
Entrants this year derived from such diverse categories as eco-design, sporting goods, housewares, furniture, medical and scientific equipment, consumer electronics and transportation.