When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works. |
Canon has won what is being dubbed the “highest honor” at the 2025 Red Dot Design Award with the Canon EOS R1. Beyond the technology and performance of the camera, the new cross pattern grip on the camera received a special mention.
As with all Canon 1-series cameras, the ergonomics are second to none, until the next 1-series camera.
A company does have to pay to enter a product for review and recognition to receive a Red Dot Design Award. It's a good marketing tool, you can find some very cool new products and designs.
The Red Dot Design Award, established in 1955, is one of the world’s largest design-centered awards competitions. Excellent designs are chosen in three divisions—Product Design, Brand & Communication Design, and Design Concept. This year, entries from over 60 countries and regions were evaluated by internationally renowned design specialists under nine criteria including innovation, functionality, quality, and ergonomics.
About the Red Dot Design AwardPress Release
Canon Inc., the parent company of Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, announced that the company’s EOS R1 full-frame mirrorless camera, intended for professionals, won the “Best of the Best,” the highest honor, at the Red Dot Design Award: Product Design 2025 competition hosted by the Switzerland-based Red Dot Award AG. The awards ceremony will be held on July 8 in Essen, Germany.
The EOS R1 camera, released in November 2024, is the first flagship model in the EOS R System series. Thanks to a powerful image processing system introduced in this camera for the first time, and the use of deep learning technology, the EOS R1 camera is designed to achieve a high level of photographic performance required by professional photographers.
- 24MP Full-Frame Stacked BSI CMOS
- DIGIC Accelerator + DIGIC X Processing
- Dual Pixel AF with Action Priority
- Improved Eye Control AF
- 6K 60 Raw & 4K 120 10-Bit
- Up to 40 fps
- Pre-Continuous Shoot Mode
- 9.44m-Dot 0.9x EVF, OVF Sim.
- 3.0" 2.1m-Dot Vari-Angle Touch LCD
- Vertical Grip, 2x CFexpress Type B Slots
- Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G Base-T Wired Ethernet
Through functions such as Action Priority1, which recognizes certain actions including soccer shots by instantly shifting the AF frame, and eye-control AF2, the device is capable of persistently tracking target subjects.
New Grip Design
Its rubber grip features a specially designed cross pattern with a strong grip capability that helps improve the camera’s handling performance by protecting the device from being dropped when changing between vertical and horizontal positions.
Additionally, locking mechanisms are installed on moving segments of the camera, including the diopter-adjustment dial and card slot cover, to thoroughly prevent unintended operation. Through comfortable operability and a shape rooted in ergonomics, the camera achieves a design fit for professional users.
Summary
The EOS R1 camera has received high praise for its design, earning the iF Design Award 2025 (Germany), which is similarly as internationally prestigious as the Red Dot Design Award. This award is a reflection of Canon’s ongoing commitment to create products that expertly blend performance with design.
- Effective only for taking still images with an electronic shutter. Recognition accuracy may be reduced when the subject appears too small, when the subject is partially hidden behind an obstacle, or when multiple subjects are crowded together. The applicable sports are soccer, basketball, and volleyball. ↩︎
- Requires calibration beforehand. Eye-control AF may be unusable when users are wearing sunglasses, mirrored sunglasses, hard contact lenses, or bifocal glasses, or due to individual differences such as eye condition (narrow eyes, long eyelashes, or thick eyelids) and the usage environment. ↩︎
- 24MP Full-Frame Stacked BSI CMOS
- DIGIC Accelerator + DIGIC X Processing
- Dual Pixel AF with Action Priority
- Improved Eye Control AF
- 6K 60 Raw & 4K 120 10-Bit
- Up to 40 fps
- Pre-Continuous Shoot Mode
- 9.44m-Dot 0.9x EVF, OVF Sim.
- 3.0" 2.1m-Dot Vari-Angle Touch LCD
- Vertical Grip, 2x CFexpress Type B Slots
- Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G Base-T Wired Ethernet
That said, I see multiple articles from good sources all saying that Canon R1 won.