INDEX baby at Carnegie Mellon project launched 06/19/2026. For more detail see link.

background
The INDEX Project, a foundation born in 2002, was initially tasked with running a large-scale design award to further brand Denmark as a progressive design nation gave design awards from 2005-2023. The INDEX Project at its peak had four parts:

• Award
• Teach
• Invest
• Community
• About

The INDEX digital archives were donated to Carnegie Mellon University in 2024. On this website, we document an open-source reconstruction of the BIG PICTURE, previously available on the now-defunct theindexproject.org website.

The BIG Picture allowed people to explore the INDEX award Winners and Nominees as exemplars of Design to Improve Life aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Our hope is that this reconstruction will inform and delight designers everywhere, using INDEX award winners and nominees as inspiration for the best “Design to improve life” exemplars INDEX has collected in its 18-year history.

We need your support for this open-access initiative.

Please contact Professor Peter Scupelli from the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University to join this outstanding global initiative.

More details below…

Below are some resources for you to begin your INDEX learning journey:

https://bigpicture.alesandro.dk

provides a way to navigate all the INDEX award winners and nominees. Missing are the images and movies of the awards.

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/index-design-to-improve-life

provides a lot of content related to INDEX that can be used to create

https://www.youtube.com/@TheIndexProject/videos

Contains 345 videos that can provide interesting information for people interested in the INDEX project. See Wikipedia page to do list below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Index_Project

It lists the 2005-2021 award winners.

TO DO:

• Add 2023 winners.
• For each year  2005-2023 add the INDEX award Nominees.
• For each year, add the Jury composition: chairs and members.
• For each award winner create a linked Wikipedia page that describes the project briefly.
• For each nominee, create a Wikipedia page.
• Connect each jury member to their personal Wikipedia page if available.
• Connect each award winner with YouTube videos if available.