The international Red Dot Award competition has been organised by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen since 1993 in order to encourage and promote the "good form", which plays such a large role in industrial design, in communication. The categories are:
- product design,
- communication design,
- intelligent design,
- design team of the year
In 2001 its name (Deutscher Preis für Kommunikationsdesign)has changed to become the Red Dot Award.