“Design on Stage” presents the award-winning products of the 2025 Red Dot Design Award. It works as an indicator of current tendencies in product design. Set within the former coal complex of Zeche Zollverein in Essen, the show brings together a wide range of everyday objects, from bathroom fittings and robotic lawn mowers to strollers and bicycles, all arranged within the raw industrial setting.

There is a clear shift away from oversized and complex devices toward compact, smart and reduced solutions, especially in the domestic sphere. What, a few years ago, was dominated by large coffee machines is now replaced by smaller and more precise appliances. Even washing machines and barbecue grills appear here as designed objects. This is less about innovation in a radical sense and more a continuous refinement of form, usability and integration into everyday life.

What stands out is the possibility to touch and test almost everything. The exhibition becomes a space you move through and engage with, rather than observe from a distance, producing a different kind of awareness, one rooted in direct interaction rather than representation. The range goes from furniture to technology to packaging.

At the same time, a certain ambivalence remains. Some areas feel less like curated statements and more like staged brand environments. Some companies appear repeatedly, and the presentation sometimes resembles a showroom rather than an exhibition. The boundary between exhibition visit and window shopping becomes blurred, a sign that what is presented here as “good design” is always also part of an economic system. Still, the experience remains interesting as a snapshot of what is currently considered “good design”—or simply: outstanding marketing.

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