Hyundai Motor, Genesis Receive Prestigious Honors at 2021 IDEA International Design Excellence Awards

Hyundai Motor Company and Genesis have received prestigious distinctions at the 2021 IDEA International Design Excellence Awards for their pioneering and customer-friendly design breakthroughs.

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 – the company’s first dedicated battery electric vehicle and a midsize CUV under the IONIQ BEV lineup – clinched the Gold Award in the Automotive and Transportation category, the event’s highest-level accolade. In addition, the Hyundai Bluelink App and Genesis Infotainment System – the last of which incorporates Genesis’s Copper Design Theme – were named Finalists in the Digital Interaction category.

With the Hyundai IONIQ 5’s Gold Award and Hyundai Bluelink App and Genesis Infotainment System’s Finalist recognitions, Hyundai Motor Group has secured three honorable spots at the 2021 IDEA. Launched in 1980 and organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), IDEA is widely regarded as the top design award event in North America. The winners and finalists of IDEA are selected through a rigorous evaluation process comprehensively examining the innovation, user benefits, social responsibility and other aspects.

“We are honored to receive the Gold Award, the highest honor at IDEA, for the Hyundai IONIQ 5,” said SangYup Lee, Senior Vice President and the Head of Hyundai and Genesis Global Design. “We have taken a journey into the rich history of Hyundai Motor to develop the IONIQ 5’s timeless design concept, which seamlessly connects our past, present and future altogether.”

He added, “The IONIQ 5 and our top honor at IDEA are the results of the passion, dedication and creative collaboration of our dream design team, as well as those of our engineers at the Namyang R&D Center.”

The IONIQ 5 features Hyundai Motor’s unique Parametric Pixels – small units of digital imaging – as well as ecofriendly Color Material Finish (CMF) method that smoothly fuse the analogue and digital styling characteristics. These design features, alongside numerous others embedded in the IONIQ 5, combine to effectively illuminate the IONIQ BEV brand’s timeless design approach and value.

In 2020, Hyundai Motor received the Bronze Medal at IDEA for its “45” concept car, which has foreshadowed the future design identity of the IONIQ 5 and the company’s automobile design direction centered on electrification, autonomy and seamless connectivity.

The Hyundai Bluelink App, meanwhile, was placed in the Finalist position, adding to its top wins at the 2021 iF Design Awards and 2021 Red Dot Design Awards, and sweeping the top three world-renowned design awards of this year. The application was recognized for its interface innovation combining aesthetical design and user-friendliness, as it features solutions such as Hyundai Motor’s Digital Key and Car Pay in a simplistic, integrated and easy-to-use manner. 

The Genesis Infotainment System was also named the Winner of the 2021 iF Design Awards, and with the Finalist honor at the 2021 IDEA, further cements its place as a solution boasting design competitiveness and user-oriented utility. The system, by incorporating the Copper Design Theme, embodies the luxurious and elegant brand identity of Genesis vehicles and solutions, and serves as a customer-centric UX design solution optimized to the digital environment.