Denter Pete Avondoglio is Professor Emeritus at Umea Institue of Design in Sweden, and has been instrumental in developing their Advanced Product Design (APD) program. In 2008, Pete described how he saw their program as possessing a unique identity — one of identifying problems and solving them:

We see a growing demand for innovation and conceptual thinking, as well as the emotional aspects and the concept of experience design. Industry today usually has marketing people, technical experts and production know-how – and a major need for most is innovative product development – the identification of problems and the development of products and concepts to solve them – a good area for industrial designers.

That emphasis has helped the school reap a new award. In November, at Umeågalan — the Swedish entrepreneurial event of the year, the Umeå Institute of Design was the winner in the “Best Brand” category.

Kudos to Pete and his team for the well-deserved recognition.