LONDON, ENGLAND.- This is the first year of the Design Museum’s new national award with a £25,000 prize for the UK-born or based designer who made the biggest contribution to design in the past year. The winner of the first Designer of the Year prize is Jonathan Ive who, as vice president of industrial design at Apple has transformed the modern workplace with such design innovations as the iMac computer and iPod MP3 player. Also shortlisted for the award were jewelry designer Solange Azagury-Partridge; product designer Tord Boontje; and Rockstar Games, designers of the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City video game. Judge their work for yourself at the exhibition and on the Designer of the Year website.

A documentary on the Designer of the Year award will be broadcast on BBC2 on Wednesday 11 June.

The Design Museum created the Designer of the Year award as a way or recognizing individual designers or design teams either based in the UK or born in the UK. Ive, who now lives in the United States, was born in Britain and educated at Newcastle Polytechnic, according to Macworld UK’s report.