Electroplankton creator’s Tenori-On gets design award nod

One of our sister magazines, MI Pro (for the music instrument industry – not an area we imagine that many Develop readers watch that much) reports that the innovative new instrument devised by Electroplankton creator Toshio Iwai has been nominated for an award.

The Tenori-on matrix performance controller, designed by Iwai in collaboration with Yamaha, has been nominated for the new Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition and awards in the Product Design category, alongside such household names as Apple’s iPhone and Nintento’s Wii games system.

This new annual exhibition and awards scheme celebrates the most innovative and progressive international designs and is nominated by a team of respected design experts including Nick Knight, Philipp Rode and Wayne Hemmingway. The inaugural Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum runs from February 13th until April 27th 2008.

MI Pro explains: Tenori-on was the result of a five year partnership between Yamaha and Iwai that resulted in a completely new concept in portable music-making and performance art. The instrument functions through a 16-by-16 LED button matrix controller, with which the user interacts with the LED buttons and the light they produce to gain access to numerous performance capabilities that merge digital music performance technology and an exciting visual experience.