German Design Council honours ŠKODA Octavia

ŠKODA Bestseller places first in 2013 Automotive Brand Contest’s Exterior Volume Brand category. Expert praise for new ŠKODA shape language. Renowned experts agreed the ŠKODA Octavia sets new standards in the compact segment as the saloon’s third generation took top awards in the Exterior Volume Brand category of the 2013 Automotive Brand Contest hosted by the German Design Council (Rat für Formgebung). This was the first time an independent jury at this international design competition presented the award in this category. In awarding ŠKODA Octavia the top honour in the competition, the jury recognised the outstanding new design of this ŠKODA bestseller. ŠKODA design chief Jozef Kaba? and his team have restyled the car from head to toe. Never before has an Octavia stood so dynamic and simultaneously so timelessly elegant, so distinctive, so high in quality and so assured in appearance as the model’s third generation. Besides its new design, the Octavia impresses with an unmatched space offering, functionality, innovative safety and comfort systems, fuel efficiency, numerous Simply Clever ideas and ŠKODA-typical price/value ratio. “The ŠKODA Octavia is the heart of our brand and our bestselling model by far,” says ŠKODA CEO Winfried Vahland. The Automotive Brand Contest’s jury’s verdict amounts to special praise for the designers in Mladá Boleslav as it assesses design across all brand products. “Our comprehensive approach is what makes the ‘Automotive Brand Contest’ so significant for the industry“, says Andrej Kupetz, general manager of the German Design Council, adding: “What we guarantee is a long-term and neutral assessment of branding in an international context.” The German Design Council was founded in 1953 at the behest of the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament. It is an independent and internationally active foundation for the advancement of design, recognising outstanding product and communications design in nine categories and four special categories. Award classes cover the entire design spectrum and range from vehicle designs and concepts via brand design and meshed multimedia all the way to campaigns and events. The Automotive Brand Contest highlights the elementary importance of brands and their design in the automobile industry. This year’s international jury at the contest comprised representatives of the media, design, brand communication and academia. Entry to the 2013 Automotive Brand Contest was open to all companies in the automobile and supplier industries, design and brand agencies and import brands. The awards will be presented on September 10th during “Automotive Designers’ Night” at the International Automobile Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, Germany. Source: skoda-auto