Design a modern hero

Image credit: Terry Hart

Here is a competition that could be fun to participate. The task:

What kind of character or distinction defines the modern-day hero in these times? What powers would he/she possess? Summon your illustrative force and go where no design has gone before. This competition asks you to come up with and illustrate a new kind of hero – your own benevolent fictional character for this day and age.

Social Designer will pick the best hero design to win a prize money of $2000. The winning design will be made into a t-shirt and sold on Social Designer.com with 20% of the profits going to 826 National, a non-profit organization.

An imitation of daylight receives 2009 design report award at SaloneSatellite

Did you ever think about what positive effect daylight has when it is streaming into a room? Of course we know that light makes us feel good and bright. But what about the patterns on the wall it creates?

“Daylight in a room indoor gives information or signs of something outside the physical room. These signs give us a subconcious feeling that our perceived space is larger than the physical room. The contrast betwwen and indoor decreases.”

That is what Daniel Rybakken knows about the relation between light and room – and with this in mind he created “Surface Daylight”, a light panel with light in the surface and therefore simulating streaming daylight into a room. With his project he won the Design Report Award 2009 at the SaloneSatellite in Milan.

I think this award found the right winner. The project is amazing as it uses the latest technology in light (and shows what can be achieved with it) in an ubiquitous and aesthetically appealing way.

Student team from MIT wins 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems (SPM/MoD), submitted by an interdisciplinary team of students at MIT has been selected as the winner of the prestigious 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. The team will receive a $100,000 prize at a conferring ceremony on June 6th, 2009 at 2pm at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago followed by a reception and celebration featuring a presentation by design innovator Bruce Mau.

Given the nature of the crises we are facing, from climate change to economic collapse, what is important is to demonstrate that the approach to design and problem solving at the core of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge – while always thinking big – has the potential to bring about changes in the near-term. The winning project is a perfect example of the kind of radical, transformative change that is possible when we reconceive the old ways of doing things and take a systems-based approach to design,” said The Buckminster Fuller Challenge jurors in a statement about their decision. “SPM/MoD isn’t just about the design of these lightweight, highly efficient, electric vehicles, it is about inserting that technological innovation into the social and cultural environment and designing an intuitive system within which they function.

To learn more about the winning strategy, visit: http://challenge.bfi.org/winner_2009

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge from Buckminster Fuller Institute on Vimeo.

Audi Design Award: and the winner is… the Jury!

Admittedly it is always complicated to describe more or less abstract objects visually. And it is hard to combine arts and industry. When done so, many people understand the outcome as »design«. So it happened with the Audi design award for the eastern region of Germany where the task was to create a sculpture.

From three design schools – the Hochschule Wismar, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and the Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau – only 8 concepts participated. A rather small competition. Task was to create a sculpture that is connected to the Corporate Design of Audi. The winner sculpture would be handed out on special occasions of Audi in the eastern region (of Germany – yes it is still in the heads…).

Winner of the competition with a prize money of 2.000 Euros is Sandra Huxoll. Not her fault is the wish-wash statement of the jury: »The design convinced the jury by its modern and at the same time timeless style. The model has a high design

Winners of the Design Preis Schweiz 2007

The following prizes will be awarded tonight at the ceremony of the Swiss design award at the Konzertsaal in Solothurn:

• Merit: the distinction that honours a continuous long-term contribution to Swiss design – goes to
Pierre Keller, Director of the ECAL/Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne
• Market: CHF 30’000.– goes to Martin Woodtli for a «series of posters for the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich»
• Newcomer: CHF 30’000.– goes to Beth Kottonau for the men’s collection «Jutter»
• Research: CHF 15’000.– goes to Christian Iten, Daniel Lüthi, Emanuel Zgraggen for «tangent – a multi touch surface»
• Swiss Textile Design Award by Swiss Textile Federation (CHF 20’000.–) goes to CréationBaumann,Weberei und Färberei AG for the adhesive textile material«GECKO»
• Swiss Product Design Award: CHF 20’000.– goes to Vitra AG, Birsfelden (Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec) for the office chair «Worknest»

The exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Solothurn will last from November 3, 2007 to January 6, 2008. A publication has been brought out to accompany the exhibition. This may be ordered from the Swiss Design Center.

More information via: www.designpreis.ch

Call for entries: new logo for the UN Film Festival

Call for entries: the social design network Design 21 (organized in partnership with UNESCO) is organizing a logo competition for the UN Documentary Film Festival »Stories from the Field«. As you can see there is lots to do with their corporate design indeed.

The Stories from the Field festival is presented by Media Communications Association International, New York Chapter (MCA-I NY) in partnership with the United Nations Department of Public Information (UNDPI) and The New School in New York. Until now the communications material for Stories from the Field has contained variations of the MCA-I NY logo with the United Nations logo and the title – as shown in this example.

The organization is looking for a logo that represents the festival, rather than the organizations that present it. The logo would be used on the festival’s calls for entries, programs, posters, flyers, stationery, collateral materials and the website. It would also be used to brand the various satellite festivals that are in formation.

Prize money is $ 5,000. Deadline November 26, 2007.
Here’s again the details on the website of Design 21.