Seymourpowell announces that its Aircruise concept has won a prestigious Conde Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Award. For more information, go to seymourpowell.com and blog.seymourpowell.com/2010/05/aircruise-concept-wins-conde-nast-traveller-innovation-and-design-award/

1. PRESS RELEASE
Seymourpowell Aircruise concept wins Condé Nast Traveller
Innovation and Design Award
London, UK, 11 M ay 2010 – leading global design and innovation company
Seymourpowell is happy to announce that its Aircruise concept has won a prestigious Condé
Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Award. At the awards ceremony on Monday 10 May,
Dr. Paul Thompson, Rector of the Royal Collage of Art, presented Seymourpowell with the
award for ‘Best project in Aviation’.
Seymourpowell’s winning Aircruise concept – a innovative transportation design for a giant,
vertical airship powered by natural energy and designed to carry travellers in style and luxury
– was included in the awards shortlist drawn up by a panel of expert and high-profile judges
from across travel, lifestyle and hospitality sectors. The shortlist was published in early April
on the Condé Nast Traveller website where the magazine’s global readership was invited to
vote for the winners in each of the 10 categories.
The Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards, now in its fourth year, aims to
celebrate excellence from across a range of related sectors encompassing transport and
infrastructure, culture and style, consumer technology, retail, leisure and sustainability. The
winning Seymourpowell design received the highest number of votes in the Aviation
category, which also included projects from British Airways, Qatar Airlines and NASA
amongst others.
Introduced in early 2010, Seymourpowell’s Aircruise is the concept design for a hotel in the
sky, with low passenger numbers and huge internal spaces offering room for living, dining
and relaxing, as well as scope for dramatic and inspirational public spaces. The initial design
proposes a bar/lounge zone, four duplex apartments, a penthouse and five smaller
apartments.
Originally a self-generated project, the concept subsequently captured the imagination of
Korean giant Samsung Construction and Trading (C&T). Driven by its interest in new
materials for building, Samsung C&T appointed Seymourpowell to refine the idea and
produce a detailed computer animation of the proposed experience to illustrate this visionary
approach to the future. For full details please visit
http://www.seymourpowell.com/aircruise/aircruise-press-release.html

2. Other winners on the night included iPad by Apple, designer Paul Smith, Anya Hindmarch,
Anish Kapoor, Zaha Hadid and Virgin Galactic. For full details see
http://www.cntraveller.com/magazine/innovation-and-design-2010/the-winners
Nominations in the Aviation Category were:
• The Aircruise concept by design and innovation company Seymourpowell
• Bombadier Learjet 85 business aircraft
• British Airways London City to New York all-business flight
• British Airways new First Class Cabin designed in-house with Forpeople and Tangerine
• CoGoJets founded by Jamie Walker
• The Puffin concept vehicle by NASA
• Qatar Airlines first commercial passenger flight powered by GTL Jet Fuel
• The SkyCat 200 airship designed by Roger Munk
• Smiths Detection
• SWISS’s new First Class cabin designed by Priestman Goode
• The Transition® designed by the engineering team at Terrafugia.
This year’s expert judging panel:
• Sir Nicholas Serota , Director of TATE
• Internationally acclaimed chef Heston Blumenthal
• Co-founder of Lastminute.com Brent Hoberman
• Renowned food lover and TV presenter Loyd Grossman
• Nicole Bellamy, director of the Projects Art Consultancy
• Condé Nast Traveller’s Associate Fashion & Beauty Editor Fiona Lintott
• John Thackara, founder of the Netherlands Design Institute and author of In The
Bubble
• Time Magazine’s Style & Design Contributing Editor Marion Hume
• Financial Times restaurant critic Nicholas Lander
• Leading travel commentator and Condé Nast Traveller Contributing Editor Simon
Calder
• Motoring journalist Peter Hall
• David Rowan, Editor of WIRED UK
• Author and journalist Chris Goodall
• Principal Curator of Technology at London’s Science Museum, Andrew Nahum
• Paul Thompson, Rector of the Royal College of Art

3. • The Observer’s architecture critic Rowan M oore
• Ricky Burdett, Centennial Professor in Architecture and Urbanism at the LSE
• Motoring journalist Jason Barlow
***ENDS***
For further information contact:
Tim Duncan
PR Global, Seymourpowell
Email: tim.duncan@seymourpowell.com
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7386 2369
For further information on the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards
2010:
Nicky Eaton or Harriet Robertson, Condé Nast press office
Email: Nicky.Eaton@condenast.co.uk or Harriet.Robertson@condenast.co.uk
Tel:020 7152 3377/338
About Seymourpowell – the shape of things to come
Seymourpowell is one of the world’s leading design and innovation companies. Founded in
1984 by Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, the London-based group of award-winning
designers has produced some of the ‘milestone’ products of the last two decades. The
company is now part of the Loewy Group.
Seymourpowell is currently 80 people, combining a design studio, research centre, materials
library and prototyping workshop.
Seymourpowell has a unique holistic approach to design and innovation, which combines in
depth experience and up to date intelligence about people, markets and businesses. The
company has the ability to forecast and interpret the vital implications of behaviors and work
out future scenarios to give its clients the confidence and reassurance they are making the
right decision.
Seymourpowell is skilled in exploiting ideas that create real value and always look to move
clients forward creatively. Seymourpowell is not just a company of visionary thinkers, but
future ‘doers’. Ultimately, Seymourpowell is about making things better: better for people,
better for business and better for the world.

4. Specialisms include design innovation, transportation design, ethnographic user research,
strategy and new product development (NPD), trends and forecasting, product design and
development, 3D structural design and 2D graphic design.