Hankook Tire has been awarded three wins across two categories – Professional Concept and Product – at the 2019 iF Design Awards. Its winning works include concept tires Hexonic and HLS-23 and passenger car tire Kinergy 4S 2.
Hexonic and HLS-23 tires are the result of Hankook Tire’s Design Innovation, a research and development project, which presents new visions and resolutions for the future of driving through tires. The tires were developed through collaborative research with students from the Royal College of Art (RCA).
The Hexonic, designed for fully autonomous cars created for car sharing, provides optimized driving solutions and is equipped with smart sensors. The HLS-23 tire focuses on the sustainability of the transport system, and its logistics, through road recognition, adaptation and self-charging.
Kinergy 4S 2, the winner in the Product category, is an all-season tire suitable for both summer and winter road conditions, equipped with improved drainage performance, a result of its asymmetrical V-shaped pattern. Elements of the tire are inspired by ski plates and waterwheel-like drainage to improve stability and adjustment to the various road conditions. Two different summer and winter sipes were applied to satisfy both brake performance on snowy roads and handling performance on dry roads.
In 2009, Hankook Tire won the iF Design Award for the first time with its ‘Optimo 4S.’ Since then, Hankook Tire’s all-season tire designs continue to impress; the Kinergy 4S won the Product award in 2014 and all previous models of the Kinergy 4S have attained successive achievements.
“It’s an honor to be awarded the iF Design Award. We set out to create the most practical yet attractive tire design and are proud to be recognized by one of the world’s most prestigious design awards,” said Hankook Tire president and CEO Hyun Bum Cho. “Hankook Tire will continue its commitment to building the most innovative high-performance products.”
The iF Design Award is presented by the International Forum Design, a German marketing consulting firm. It is one of the top-three most reputable international design awards along with the Reddot Design Award and the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA).
Each year, the iF Design Award entries are classified into seven disciplines of product, packaging, interior architecture and communication, which are then categorized into 72 sub-categories. The entries are evaluated based on 10 pieces of criteria, including innovation and elaboration, functionality, aesthetics, responsibility and positioning. This year, around 6,400 entries from 50 countries were received.
