IEK received its first international award. The FORTE&PIANO electrical installation equipment collection was recognized as the winner of one of the world's largest design competitions, the iF DESIGN AWARD, in the "Product Design" category (Building Technology).
FORTE&PIANO — these are sockets and switches of a special frameless design, patented by IEK GROUP. Their design does not limit the number of modules in a single row. The collection was created in collaboration with the design bureau Architime Design.
"FORTE&PIANO rethinks ordinary design and offers an innovative solution, simplifying interaction with the product from the production stage to operation," — it is stated on the winner's page on the competition website.
In the description, the competition organizers particularly noted the cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness of the collection. The absence of frames reduces the number of parts in the construction, which allows using fewer resources in production.
"When developing the collection, we wanted to create a high-tech product accessible to everyone," says Ekaterina Kugaevskaya, Head of the "Energy Distribution and Transmission Equipment" business unit at IEK GROUP. "We considered various options — wave, circle, just smooth glass surfaces. As a result of the search and gathering feedback from the market, together with the designers, we came up with the 'beyond frames' concept. Imagine: when installing sockets, the consumer needs to make a plan of where and how many to mount. Usually, the offer is limited to five modules. FORTE&PIANO has no limits or frames, you can install as many modules as you want."
The international design competition iF DESIGN AWARD has been held since 1954, the award is considered one of the most prestigious in the world. The winner is determined in nine categories — such as product design, packaging design, communication design, and others. The evaluation of the submitted products is conducted according to five criteria: idea, form, function, differentiation, and brand fit/ecological compatibility.
In 2025, the competition received 11,000 applications from 66 countries. The jury, consisting of 131 representatives of the design industry from 23 countries, selected the best projects.