Meet our winner

CLIP - A TRUE LEADER IN DESIGN

Clip Limited is a young, design-driven startup business in the airline equipment industry, providing true leadership in creative design. With an HQ and product development team in Hong Kong and design studio in Switzerland, the three head designers at Clip also serve as professors at the University of Art and Design in Lausanne (ECAL), one of the world’s top design schools. Through this practice, they are able to share their experience of designing products for the airline industry with up and coming design students, and draw their attention to this field. The connection also allows them to target the most promising talent and hire them for the studio.

Clip is committed to offering opportunities to young, talented designers from around the world.

It takes six interns a year, for sixmonths each time, and gives them the chance to work on real assignments. This is highly enriching for both sides: Clip benefits from the fresh untamed creativity of the young designers, while they gather real life experience and become familiar with the complex problems of designing airline equipment and amenities.

The internship scheme is extremely popular so has the pick of the absolutely most talented young professionals and acted as a launchpad for each young designer's career. Some have stayed and helped build the Clip team – being given the opportunity to take real responsibilities at a young age in the unique startup ecosystem. Others have become independent or joined some of the world’s leading design studios.

Clip believes it is unique in the way it bridges the gap between this highly-specialised airline equipment industry and nonindustry- specific designers, offering them a hands-on approach and using 2D, 3D programmes, 3D printers and mock-ups to bring their designs to life. Clip believes prototypes are very important and that designers must not simply stick with a beautiful image but also create objects that perform well. Interns get the chance to design in a way which combines different expertise and they build a solid and comprehensive skillset. It is a strategy that is clearly working as the company’s success relies on innovation. The Swiss Bento Box, which received an Onboard Hospitality

Award in 2016, is just one good example of how fresh ideas can make a real difference to the passenger experience.