Design Stars

Who are the American companies that "get it"--who understand the value of design as a valuable competitive advantage?

According to Fast Company magazine, the following companies top the list.

Icons of design:

- Herman Miller (office furniture)
- Apple ("Style, specs and sophistication...")
- Burton (snowboards)
- Viking (cooking appliances)
- Oxo (kitchen tools)
- JetBlue (airline)
- Nike ("...bringing art and fashion to sport")
- Kohler (fixtures)
- Target ("Where designers go to sell...")
- Starbucks (coffee culture)

Sleepers:

- The Container Store ("unexpectedly attractive products")
- McDonald's ("systems-design upgrade")
- Black and Decker (tools)
- WalMart ("greening the supply chain")
- Crown (forklifts)
- Whirlpool ("can appliances by sexy?")
- Johnson & Johnson ("functional, sustainable design")
- Interface (carpet maker)
- GE
- 3M

Newcomers:

- Gilt Groupe (fashion website)
- Flipboard (real-time virtual magazines)
- Jawbone (headsets and speakers)
- Method (cleaning products)
- Fitbit (health data monitoring)
- Tesla (sleek electric sports cars)
- Fuego (outdoor grill company)
- InCase ("the most stylish maker of Apple accessories")
- Twitter (easy-to-use interface)
- LiveScribe (smartpen)

Any others that are out there which didn't make this list? For me, Beats by Dre would be on this list as well as Hitpad, yet another stylish iPad app.