By Eli Porter
Installation view of ‘World’s Best Communication Design 2025’ at the Red Dot Design Museum Essen. Photo courtesy of Red Dot.
The Red Dot Design Museum Essen is presenting “World’s Best Communication Design 2025,” a major international exhibition showcasing more than 800 awarded brand and communication design projects from 39 countries. On view from February 27 through May 31, 2026, the exhibition occupies the museum’s landmark venue at Zollverein, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Essen, Germany. The curated selection brings together printed works, physical objects, and digital applications, offering a comprehensive overview of current positions in global communication design.
Among the projects selected for exhibition is Campus AutoShuttle, a human-machine interface and UX system for autonomous campus mobility that received the 2025 Red Dot Award in the Interface & User Experience category. The project, which competed against entries from international agencies, design studios, and technology firms worldwide, was recognized for its design quality and selected for presentation alongside work from organizations including Hyundai, Accenture Song, and Eindhoven University of Technology.
The Campus AutoShuttle HMI/UX, designed to deliver transparent, real-time visualization of autonomous vehicle perception and campus navigation data. Image courtesy of the design team.
The Campus AutoShuttle was designed by a multidisciplinary design team: Zeya Chen (Project Lead), Jianwei Zhang (Design Lead), Yiwen Teng (UI/UX Design), Chenfeng Gao (Interaction Design),and Cheng-Jie Liu (Motion Design). This award-winning project is a fully integrated HMI/UX design system for short-range autonomous mobility. Leveraging a proprietary multi-modal radar system and live operational datasets, the interface addresses a critical challenge in urban autonomous transportation: making the decision-making process of self-driving vehicles transparent and trustworthy for passengers. The system integrates AI-powered radar perception with real-time safety monitoring, institutional data systems, and personalized service layers, transforming what is typically an opaque automated experience into one that is legible, adaptive, and contextually responsive. Through safety visualization, ergonomic interaction design, and data-driven personalization, the project demonstrates how human-centered design methodology can bridge the gap between complex autonomous technology and meaningful user experience.
The Campus AutoShuttle on display at the ‘World’s Best Communication Design 2025’ exhibition, Red Dot Design Museum Essen, Berlin, Germany. Photo courtesy of the design team.
Zeya Chen, who directed the project’s overall vision, research strategy, and design integration, is a design researcher and practitioner whose work spans AI-powered systems, behavioral design, data governance, and human-centered privacy. Chen holds an M.Des from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Industrial Design from Wuhan University, China. She is currently conducting doctoral research at the Institute of Design, where her work sits at the frontier of design and human-computer interaction. Her research has been published at leading peer-reviewed venues including ACM CHI, DIS, CCS, the Design Research Society, HCII, and She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. She serves as a program committee member and reviewer for ACM CHI, DIS, CSCW, and TEI, sits on the Organizing Committee of the Chongqing Engineers Association’s Industrial Design Committee in China, and is a Professional Member of The Design Society community. Her fine art and design practice has earned over 30 international awards, including multiple iF Design Awards, Red Dot, Core77, Fast Company World-Changing Innovations, and Muse Design Awards, with work exhibited at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the Art Bethanien Biennial and Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin, the Florence Annual International Art Exhibition, the Multicultural Art Festival in Melbourne, the New Bauhaus @ 85 Exhibition in Chicago, and so on.
Yiwen Teng, who led the UI/UX design effort and was responsible for translating the project’s complex autonomous driving data into a coherent, passenger-facing interface system, is a UX designer specializing in safety-critical digital experiences for complex operational systems. Teng holds a Master’s degree in Design and currently serves as a UX Designer at AtlasIED, a leading U.S.-based company in security and communication technology, where she designs enterprise-level software for mass notification, emergency response, and system management in commercial environments worldwide. Her professional work focuses on creating intuitive interfaces that support rapid decision-making and operational clarity in high-stakes situations. Her design work has been recognized by the Red Dot Design Award, iF Design Award, NY Product Design Awards, Muse Design Awards and Creative Awards, International Design Awards, C2A Creative Communication Award, and the London International Creative Competition, with exhibitions at Milano Design Week 2026, the Florence Annual International Art Exhibition 2026, Art Shopping at the Salon International d’Art Contemporain 2025, and so on.
Project Lead Zeya Chen (right) and Principle UI/UX Designer Yiwen Teng (left) at the Red Dot Ceremony at Konzerthaus Berlin. Photo courtesy of the design team.
The “World’s Best Communication Design 2025” exhibition represents one of the most significant annual surveys of international communication design. All projects on display were selected through the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design 2025, one of the most established and internationally recognized design competitions, with a judging history spanning nearly 70 years. The exhibition serves as a reference point for professionals, researchers, and students seeking a concentrated view of current excellence in the field.
The exhibition is on view at the Red Dot Design Museum Essen through May 31, 2026. Tickets and visitor information are available at red-dot-design-museum.org/essen. Further details about the Campus AutoShuttle project can be found at red-dot.org.
