Kumho Tire wins two Red Dot Design Awards with futuristic 'Omni Ring' tire

Kumho Tire has claimed two awards at the 2026 Red Dot Design Award, one of the world's top three design prizes. The company earned recognition for both an all-terrain tire and a concept tire aimed at future mobility.

Kumho Tire announced Tuesday that its futuristic modular tire concept, the "Omni Ring," won in the Design Concept category at the 2026 Red Dot Design Award.

The Red Dot Design Award is an international design competition organized by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany. It ranks among the world's three most prestigious design prizes, alongside Germany's iF Design Award and the US IDEA award. The competition recognizes outstanding design across categories including product design, brand and communication, and design concept.

The Omni Ring's win in the Design Concept category gives Kumho Tire two Red Dot victories this year. The company had earlier won in the Product Design category with its all-terrain tire, the Road Venture RT.

The Omni Ring is a modular tire concept developed with future urban transportation in mind. Its defining feature is a design that enables multidirectional movement — a departure from conventional vehicles, which are built primarily for forward and backward travel. The concept is intended to allow future urban mobility vehicles to move more freely in tight spaces.

Its structure also differs from conventional tires. Built on a compression-based architecture, the design allows the number of tire modules to be adjusted according to the size and shape of the mobility platform. The scalability is intended to accommodate the increasingly diverse vehicle forms expected in future mobility environments.

The tread pattern also changes depending on driving conditions. A comb-like pattern is applied for urban driving to reduce noise and improve efficiency, while a block-type pattern is used for high-speed travel — such as intercity routes — to enhance stability and performance.

The Omni Ring had already won in the Product Concept category at this year's iF Design Award in Germany. The Red Dot win adds further international validation of its design and technology direction for next-generation tires.

Kumho Tire said it plans to continue developing designs suited to future mobility environments and strengthening its product competitiveness.

"We are delighted that our concept tire, which embodies Kumho Tire's vision for the future, has received such strong recognition on the world stage," said Kim Young-jin, executive vice president and head of Kumho Tire's research and development division. "We will continue to devote ourselves to researching and developing products that lead the future market, in line with the rapidly changing mobility environment."