Category: Awards


Although the Grassimesse has been staged, with readily understandable pauses, since 1920, the Grassimesse smow-Designpreis is being staged for the first time in 2023.

Which means a highly impressive roster of innovative, intelligent, imaginative, informative, designers from back in the day can’t win it. Have, if one so will, missed out

But you can win it and the associated €2,500.

Or can if your reading this before Friday May 12th Sunday May 21st, the new extended, deadline for entries.

Otherwise you’ve also missed out.

Putting you in an illustrious, if very unfortunate, group along with the likes of…….

A selection of works that did, or could have appeared at the Grassimesse between 1920 and 1941, and could have won the smow-Designpreis, had it existed.......

László Moholy-Nagy may have given Marianne Brandt “mettle for metal”, and metal may be the material with which she is most readily and popularly associated; however, as she wrote in 1922, “Ich bin ganz von Glas”….. I am entirely glass.

Fragile? Transparent? Opaque? Metamorphic? Refractive? Sparkling?

For its 7th edition the triennial International Marianne Brandt Contest sought projects exploring glass in all its interpretations, properties and essences; the 60 nominated projects being presented alongside a cabinet showcase devoted to Marianne Brandt in the exhibtion Ich bin ganz von Glas. Marianne Brandt and the Art of Glass Today at the Sächsische Industriemuseum Chemnitz.

Ich bin ganz von Glas. Marianne Brandt and the Art of Glass Today, Sächsische Industriemuseum Chemnitz

For the fifth year in succession ArkDes, Sweden’s national centre for architecture and design, is hosting the Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design award/platform exhibition: a showcase of 25 projects providing for 25 understandings of contemporary design in/from Sweden.

Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2019 Exhibition, ArkDes Stockholm

With a new name, but a familiar format, the 2018 Kölner Design Preis once again celebrates the city’s design students and creative colleges, including an exhibition of all nominated projects in the Cologne Museum für Angewandte Kunst.

1st Prize: Unfolding Space by Jakob Kilian (KISD), as seen at Kölner Design Preis/Toby E. Rodes Award 2018 Exhibition, MAKK Cologne

We’re great believers in Fate, in the guiding principle that if it is meant to be, it will be: not least because it protects us from the expectations of achievement.

Further proof of the veracity of Fate was provided by our meeting during Milan Design Week 2018 with the project Moorwerk by Jan Christian Schulz.

Moorwerk by Jan Christian Schulz, as seen at ein&zwanzig, Milan Design Week 2018

Organised by the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design, IKEA, the City of Malmö and ArkDes, Sweden’s national architecture and design museum, the annual Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design award/platform, premiers young design talents not only of Swedish birth, but non-Swedes currently based in Sweden, regardless of genre, but who, in the words of outgoing Swedish Society of Crafts and Design CEO Ewa Kumlin, “experiment freely, venture without fear, believe in their ideas and have the strength to implement them”

Celebrating its 20th edition Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2018 features the work of 29 creatives; works which can be experienced in the Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2018 Exhibition at ArkDes, Exercisplan 4, Skeppsholmen Stockholm until Sunday March 18th.

As ever with such competitions, the jury have made their choices, the work is on display, and now it is up to the visitors to form their own opinion on the validity, or otherwise, of the inclusions. For those who can’t make it to Stockholm, the exhibition will be touring, see local press for details, and all winners are listed online at http://ungsvenskform.se

We have made it to Stockholm, a few thoughts on some of the projects….

Ung Svensk Form/Young Swedish Design 2018 Exhibition, ArkDes Stockholm

In context of Designblok Prague 2017 the winners of the fourth edition of the pan-European design graduate competition Diploma Selection were unveiled at a ceremony in the city’s Palace of Industry.

Diploma Selection 2017 winners, nominated, jury, Uncle Tom Cobley and all at Designblok Prague 2017

Algorithms as dance, a tactile architecture guide and a future-proof flat sharing platform.

On Thursday October 26th the winners of the 2017 Kölner Design Preis were unveiled at a ceremony in the city’s Museum für Angewandte Kunst, MAKK; and where until Sunday November 19th the three winning, and all nominated, projects, can be viewed in a specially conceived Kölner Design Preis 2017 exhibition.

Kölner Design Preis 2017 exhibition at Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln, MAKK

’tis a curious thing time. It has accompanied our universe since the instant of its creation, has allowed for the development of our civil and social society, is the bedrock of our economic, industrial and commercial systems, guides us through every day, week, month, year, life.

Yet it is questionable if it actually exists.

And if it does exist. In what form? How can we visualise and document it? Does it have an inherent value?

Clues towards some possible answers are provided by the Designpreis Halle 2017 exhibition.

Designpreis Halle 2017. White

The Bayerischer Staatspreis für Nachwuchsdesigner is one of the more interesting international design prizes. Not only because it is biennial and thus steadfastly refuses to play with the “every year new” ethos of the contemporary design industry, nor only because it is exclusively for young designers, but also because in addition to the “usual” categories it also recognises Design Research and Applied Crafts. And thus promotes a pleasingly healthy and positive understanding of the term “Design”

The winners of the 2016 Bayerischer Staatspreis were announced on Monday March 6th at an awards ceremony in Munich.

Merhaba by Susanne Honsa – Winner Applied Crafts, as seen at Bayerischer Staatspreis für Nachwuchsdesigner 2016 exhibition, Munich

International Marianne Brandt Contest 2016 Exhibition, Chemnitz Museum of Industry

The winners and nominated projects from the 2016 International Marianne Brandt Contest can be viewed in an exhibition in Chemnitz.

IMM Cologne 2016. Pure Talents Contest

For reasons known only to the IMM 2016 organisers the numerous segments composing the “Talents” section – that section of

Fionda table for Mattiazzi, Ormiale Bordeaux & Bac Armchair for Cappellini, as seen at the exhibition A&W Designer of the Year 2016 - Jasper Morrison, Passagen Cologne

2016 sees the 20th anniversary of German architecture and design magazine A&W’s “Designer of the Year Award.” Following on from

Lenoska by Andrea Kroupová Staged Design Award 2016 Dresden

Since 2014 the Room + Style “lifestyle” fair in Dresden has been extended, if not enhanced, through the presentation of

Since 2000 the International Marianne Brandt Contest has been searching for the Poetry of the Functional in art and design.

Enamel Experiment by AnHsu, as seen at the Kölner DESIGN Preis 2015 exhibition

On Thursday October 29th the winners of the Kölner DESIGN Preis 2015 were announced in a ceremony at the Museum

Water Carafes by Maud van Deursen Garden Unique Youngstars Cologne 2015

As we noted in our post on the 2015 Garden Unique Youngstars competition winner “snak” by Gunnar Søren Petersen, the

Garden Unique Youngstars Cologne 2015 Winner snak by Gunnar Søren Petersen

It is a fact, if not a universally known fact, that the New York Museum of Modern Art’s 1940 “Organic

Der Utopist eine architektonische Graphic Carolin Lahode

On the evening of Wednesday June 24th the winners of the 2015 aed neuland young designer competition were announced in

Marcel Kabisch Sessel Diplomarbeit Kabisch 2002_2

As we’ve often noted in these pages the eastern German town of Chemnitz markets itself as the “City of Modernism”,

Bayerischer Staatspreis für Nachwuchsdesigner 2014 Winners Honorary Recognitions Jury

Among the regional German design awards the Bavarian Design Award is particularly notable being as it is an award exclusively

Following on from the relative inactivity of August September saw us wind back up towards the 2014 autumn design festival

Sächsischer Staatspreis für Design 2014

On Friday October 24th the winners of the Saxony Design Award 2014 – the Sächsischer Staatspreis für Design 2014 –

Swiss Design Award 2014

As is becoming customary Design Miami Basel 2014 provided the backdrop for the presentation of the Swiss Design Award. And

Bundespreis Ecodesign 2013 Exhibition Umweltbundesamt Dessau

Back in November the winners of the 2013 German Federal Ecodesign Award – the Bundespreis Ecodesign – were announced at