“clic” wins the iF Design Student Award 2026
HfG product design students Noemi Kirch and Jana Schüle have won the iF Design Student Award 2026 with their bachelor’s thesis ‘clic’. Their innovative concept for a low-to-the-ground piece of seating and multi-purpose furniture stood out amongst an international field of entrants.
The iF Design Student Award is one of the world’s most prestigious design prizes for emerging creative talent. This year, just 90 visionary projects were honoured out of around 7,000 entries from all over the world. This makes the success of the two designers from Gmünd all the more significant.
clic – A low-to-the-floor seat designed to encourage more movement in everyday life
The design is highly relevant to society, as most people spend too much time sitting in today’s lifestyle – usually in an elevated, static position and without movement. The ‘clic’ project addresses precisely this issue: not as an exercise machine, not as a piece of medical furniture, but as a quiet companion in everyday life. It is a piece of furniture that encourages users to move closer to the floor again and to become more aware of their own bodies.
As a low-to-the-floor piece of seating and functional furniture, ‘clic’ naturally integrates everyday movements such as sitting down, standing up and changing position into daily life. The lower seat height gently challenges the body, activates the muscles and encourages you to change your posture repeatedly. As standing up from the floor requires more effort than with conventional seating, muscles that are often barely used in everyday life are activated, ensuring that their function is maintained in the long term.
This forward-looking project was developed during the 2025/26 winter semester as a bachelor’s thesis within the Product Design degree programme. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Gabriele Reichert and Prof. Leif Huff. The outstanding design execution, the in-depth exploration of ergonomics and the keen sense of modern living concepts impressed the international expert jury of the iF Design Award.
This success once again underlines the high quality of education at the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd. It impressively demonstrates how design innovation and user-centred thinking can lead to concrete solutions for the social and health-related issues of our time.
We warmly congratulate Noemi Kirch and Jana Schüle on this outstanding international achievement!
