We’re thrilled to announce: TED is one of the 2013 winners of the National Design Awards, given by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. The National Design Awards celebrate design “as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world” — which is how we feel about it too. Great design, like great writing and great speaking, is a vital tool for helping ideas spread.

TED wins for Corporate & Institutional Achievement — a category that honors the way great design weaves into everything TED does, from stage sets to mobile apps, from program guides to our world-spanning open initiatives like TEDx and the Open Translation Project.

And we’re in wonderful company. Other winners include Paula Scher (watch her TED Talk), fashion designer Behnaz Sarafpour, and the urbanist and critic Michael Sorkin. Browse the full list »

Among the designers, photographers and volunteers who contributed to our in-house team’s work — and are a key part of this award:

Photographers: James Duncan Davidson, Ryan Lash, Robert Leslie, Michael Brands, Marla Aufmuth and kris krüg.

Mobile designers: Brian Wilson and Rusty Mitchell.

Video designers: Psyop, Oliver Jeffers and Mac Premo, Trollbäck + Company.

Print, online and event designers: WORKSHOP, Hybrid Design, Albertson Design, Paper Plane Studio, Laura Morris, Robert Horansky, Plunkett + Kuhr, Paul Soulellis, Always With Honor, Phi-Hong Ha — and of course the founder of TED, Richard Saul Wurman …