Apple Vision Pro earns prestigious Black Pencil design award

The Black Pencil Award was for both the Apple Vision Pro hardware and visionOS

Apple has been honored with a Black Pencil by the Design and Art Direction (D&AD) awards many times before, including for the original iPhone, the iMac, and even for its website. For 2024, the Apple Vision Pro has won a Black Pencil for Digital Design and Connected Experiences — and a Graphite Pencil for Use of XR.

"We are honored that visionOS has been awarded the prestigious D&AD Black Pencil for Digital Design," Apple's Vice President of Human Interface Design Alan Dye told design magazine dezeen. "This new era of computing will redefine how we connect and create, and this award is a testament to the tight integration and care the design studio and engineering teams at Apple have invested into crafting a truly magical experience."

"At Apple, design plays such a central role in defining not only how our products look, but most critically, how they work," he continued. "Our goal has always been to create intuitive user experiences that blur the lines between hardware and software and reimagine how users interact with technology."

"VisionOS is a powerful example of these principles in action," said Dye. "Designed from the ground up, it features an entirely new interface, driven by your eyes, hands and voice, all designed to deliver spatial experiences that seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world."

"This new era of computing will redefine how we connect and create," concluded Dye, "and this award is a testament to the tight integration and care the design studio and engineering teams at Apple have invested into crafting a truly magical experience."

Describing its reasons for awarding Apple Vision Pro both the Black Pencil and Graphite Pencil, D&AD's announcement says that it "and visionOS unlock new ways to interact with technology and the world through spatial computing."

"Years in the making," it continues, "the platform is full of technological breakthroughs made possible by the tight integration between design and engineering teams across hardware and software."

Among the many D&AD awards that Apple has received, the company's entire design team was honored jointly in 2012.