Gold for Audi Trade-Fair Design

* iF awards for stand at 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show

Audi designs do not need four wheels to inspire and delight crowds. For its stand at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2007, the brand with the four rings has been honored with two iF awards from the renowned International Forum Design.

At the award ceremony in Hanover on August 29, Audi received not only the iF Communication Award 2007 in the Corporate Architecture category, but also an iF Gold Award for exceptional accomplishments. Audi convinced the jury’s 16 international designers and architects with an innovative and functional space-allocation plan as well as with the exceptional quality of execution.

"Our design excellence is not limited to cars. The Audi name stands for a trend-setting design language, which makes our appearances at trade fairs one-of-a-kind," says Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales of AUDI AG. "The iF Award is a wonderful prize and vindicates our approach to presenting our emotion-packed automobiles in a similarly captivating setting."

Audi’s stand at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show set the tone of a dynamic architecture, combined with a muted expression of color and bold black-and-white contrasts. Three models were unveiled to the world here: the Audi A4, the Audi A3 Cabriolet and the Audi RS 6. A skywalk of sorts, with brightly illuminated paths between the floor and ceiling, allowed people to traverse the stand. In the style of the new brand architecture of Audi terminals, the vehicles and innovations were staged in a market-place setting with interactive design features.

Audi’s stand was developed in conjunction with the architects’ office of Schmidhuber + Partner and with Mutabor Design. In addition to the iF Communication Design Gold Award, the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show stand has also won the ADC Award and the Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2008.

Every year, iF awards are issued in six different categories. One of these six prizes is the iF Communication Award. This year, 1,290 participants from 16 countries submitted their entries to be judged in one of five categories. In the Corporate Architecture category, Audi prevailed against 55 competitors. Of the 1,290 participants competing for the iF Communication Award, only 30 received the esteemed iF Gold Award.

AUDI AG sold a total of 964,151 cars in 2007 and thus achieved its twelfth consecutive record year. With revenue of €33,617 million and profit before tax of €2,915 million, the company attained its best figures ever. Audi produces vehicles in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm (Germany), Györ (Hungary), Changchun (China) and Brussels (Belgium). At the end of 2007, production of the Audi A6 started in Aurangabad, India.

The company is active in more than 100 markets worldwide. AUDI AG’s wholly owned subsidiaries include Lamborghini S.p.A. in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, and quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm. Audi currently employs around 57,000 people worldwide, including 45,000 in Germany.

The brand with the four rings invests more than € 2 billion each year in order to sustain the company’s technological lead embodied in its "Vorsprung durch Technik" slogan. Audi plans to significantly increase the number of models in its portfolio by 2015 to 40. 

- Jürgen De Graeve-