These are the 397 most inspiring, innovative designs of 2018

Winner:Apps and Games

Seeing AI--talking camera app

Microsoft

See Credits

Ran Zhao (Designer); Samantha Neufeld (User Researcher); Jeanne Parson (Audio designer); Rob Frye (Interaction Designer); Anirudh Koul (Founder and Researcher); Saqib Shaikh (Tech Lead); Eugene Seleznev (Software Engineer); Meher Kasam (Software Engineer); Harrison Wray (Software Engineer)

Finalist:Design Company of the Year

Microsoft

Finalist:Graphic Design and Data Visualization

Microsoft Learning Tools

Microsoft

See Credits

Mike Tholfsen, Principal Product Manager, Education and OneNote

Finalist:Health

Seeing AI--talking camera app

Microsoft

See Credits

Finalist:Social Good

Seeing AI--talking camera app

Microsoft

See Credits

Honorable Mention:Experimental

Project Zanzibar

Microsoft

See Credits

Haiyan Zhang - Team Lead Nicolas Villar - Team Lead Dan - Hardware Engineering Greg - Industrial Design, Prototyping Christian Holz - Software, Research Tim Regan - Software Development Oscar Saladin - Industrial Design

Honorable Mention:Experimental

Windows Mixed Reality

Microsoft

See Credits

The Mixed Reality Team at Microsoft

Honorable Mention:Social Good

AI for Earth

Microsoft

See Credits

Lucas Joppa, Chief Environmental Scientist at Microsoft (Leads AI for Earth); Ranveer Chandra, Principle Researcher at Microsoft (Leads FarmBeats)

Honorable Mention:Timeless Design

How Microsoft uses the cloud to adapt the Office suite

Microsoft

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Microsoft Office Engineering Teams

Honorable Mention:User Experience

Project Personality Chat

Microsoft

See Credits

Jonathan Foster – Designer; Deborah Harrison – Designer; Ron Owens – Designer; Tulasi Menon – Product manager; Sai Neppali – Product manager; Somi Reddy Satti - Developer; Radhakrishnan Srikanth – Product manager; Bill Dolan – Microsoft Research AI and Cortana Editorial team AI and R India team Microsoft Research- NLP team

See past winners: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

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Low-Tech Magazine’s new website is solar-powered, which means it goes offline in cloudy weather.

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This building’s giant sundial shows how much energy it’s making

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Dieter Rams wants Silicon Valley to stop

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This long-lost Eames design is being produced for the first time

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Winner:Apps and Games

Finalist:Design Company of the Year

Finalist:Graphic Design and Data Visualization

Finalist:Health

Finalist:Social Good

Honorable Mention:Experimental

Honorable Mention:Experimental

Honorable Mention:Social Good

Honorable Mention:Timeless Design

Honorable Mention:User Experience

Design will kill marketing, says Ikea’s former design chief

Marcus Engman is leaving Ikea to run a consultancy that convinces companies to spend their marketing budget on what matters: design.

Dyson’s latest product is a $550 hair curler

After six years and $31 million in development, Dyson is launching the Airwrap, a device that creates ringlets using a bit of aerospace-inspired physics.

Meet Krewe, the eyewear brand that New Orleans (and Beyoncé) built

The five-year-old brand’s founder is focused on giving back to his native New Orleans and putting it on the map of fashion-forward cities.

There’s even a Warby Parker of towels now

Weezie wants to shake up a mundane industry with design.

What the healthcare industry could learn from Lyft and Airbnb

The sharing economy is built upon service and interaction designs that engender interpersonal trust. Healthcare organizations could learn from it.

The future of web design is less, not more

Low-Tech Magazine’s new website is solar-powered, which means it goes offline in cloudy weather.

This building’s giant sundial shows how much energy it’s making

It’s one of the most efficient buildings in the country–but its most unique design feature might be the 40-foot-tall installation in the atrium.

Dieter Rams wants Silicon Valley to stop

In Gary Hustwit’s highly anticipated new documentary “Rams,” the legendary industrial designer indicts the world he helped create.

This long-lost Eames design is being produced for the first time

In the 1940s, radio companies rejected the Eameses’ designs as being “too modern.” Not anymore.

Sick of midcentury modern? Here’s where to buy today’s best design

Skip the spindly leg sofas and knockoff Eames chairs, and try these shopping destinations instead.

In Arizona, Indigenous nations suffer more COVID-19 cases—and more blame

Strict voter ID laws directly reduce minority turnout

We are throwing away a record 53.6 million metric tons of electronics

Let’s cancel the 4th of July this year

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New Trump campaign tee says America First, but Nazi symbol is front and center

You can now smell like space, with this new NASA-inspired fragrance

This $2,500 ventilator is a master class in designing for the COVID-19 era

How this software company saw the opportunity—and went remote nearly overnight

We have a window to create a more racially equitable workplace. Will we take advantage of it?

This is the right way to challenge someone’s thinking