Prize-winning design quality: Dekton® XGloss triumphs in Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016

Cantoria, March 31, 2016. Dekton® XGloss by Cosentino Group was awarded with the Red Dot, the international distinction for high design quality. Participants from 57 nations had registered about 5,200 products and innovations for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2016. Only products which set themselves apart considerably through their excellent design receive the sought-after quality seal from the international Red Dot jury.

The Cosentino Group, global leader in the production and distribution of innovative surfaces for architecture and design, has demonstrated once again its capacity for innovation with the launch of Dekton® XGloss, a new line of polished high-tech ultra-compact surfaces characterised by their dazzling crystal shine.

This new line in the Dekton® range, produced by means of an advanced nanotechnological treatment and a mechanical polishing process, offers an extraordinary, dazzling, luminous and crystal-like shine which, combined with the hardness and very high resistance characteristic of Cosentino´s ultra-compact surfaces, makes this a line of exceptional performance which is unique in the market. No other comparable surface today achieves this combination of aesthetics and technical performance.

In order to achieve this spectacular result, the Cosentino Group´s R&D department spent almost two years developing a pioneering and exclusive treatment based on a nanotechnology called the “Nanocoating Process”. In addition to a high gloss finish, this technology gives Dekton® XGloss water-repellent properties which make it extraordinarily stain-resistant without altering the material´s other properties or adding any outer coating to the slabs.

With 41 experts from all around the world, who are chosen according to strict rules, the Red Dot Award: Product Design guarantees a very high judging competence: Only freelance designers, design professors and specialised journalists – but not designers employed at companies potentially participating – are appointed to the jury.

The independent expert panel assesses each entry strictly and fairly, live and on site, according to criteria such as degree of innovation, formal quality, functionality and ecological compatibility. Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and president of the Red Dot Award: “With their performances, the Red Dot winners not only demonstrated an extraordinary design quality, but they also showed that design is an integral part of innovative product solutions.”

For Santiago Alfonso, Cosentino Group Marketing and Communications Director “This Red Dot Award, recognises Cosentino’s permanent commitment to Research and Development, and rewards with best Product Design 2016 a unique and extraordinary surfacing material like Dekton XGloss.”

All award-winning products will be presented in the special exhibition “Design on Stage” for four weeks of the Red Dot Design Museum Essen, before becoming part of the permanent exhibition. With about 2,000 exhibits from 45 nations, the Red Dot Design Museum Essen displays the complete range of current product design. In the former boiler house of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein coal mine, it presents products that have won the Red Dot on five floors and approximately 4,000 square metres. Every year, the world’s largest exhibition of contemporary design informs around 150,000 visitors about current trends and top achievements.