Antenna Design: Bridging Art and Commerce

"Good design isn't always visible," says Masamichi Udagawa pensively, light streaming behind him into an airy Manhattan studio. Nodding, his partner Sigi Moeslinger adds: "The essence is to lead people; design is the embodiment of the right information at the right time."

The unassuming, soft spoken pair, winners of this year's National Design Award for product design, are trying to pinpoint common themes in a broad body of work that stretches from products for companies such as Bloomberg, IBM (IBM), and Microsoft (MSFT) to interactive art displays in galleries such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Japanese-born Udagawa and Austrian Moeslinger form the core of the five-person, New York City-based Antenna Design, a firm that since 1997 has bridged the divide between art and commerce, public and private, information and objects.