The Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award is presented by the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia. The Powerhouse Museum is part of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Australia’s leading cultural institution dedicated to celebrating human ingenuity.

Lace offers a subtle interplay of space, light and shadows and the mystery of concealment. The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, has an extraordinary and well documented collection of approximately 3,000 items of lace dating from the sixteenth century to the present. The Museum’s Lace Study Centre has three hundred handmade examples of lace on display daily.

The triennial Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award seeks to encourage contemporary work of exceptional visual impact and originality, and to challenge conventional notions of lace and its applications.

AIMS OF THE AWARD

• To encourage the creation of contemporary lace of exceptional quality and visual impact.
• To promote innovation in the use of materials and techniques.
• To redefine traditional expressions of lace making and its design applications.
• To gather a wide range of entries to reflect both the affinity and diversity of global cultures.

For the purposes of this award we define lace as:

‘an openwork structure in which the pattern of spaces is as important as the solid areas.’

GENERAL INFORMATION FOR ENTRANTS

• Using the above definition as inspiration, create an original work in lace that can be worn, or used in the built environment, or a digital multi media interpretation of lace. Materials are limited only by your imagination. Works can range from large spatial pieces to tiny filigrees or multi media creations.
• The work must be original and reflect a sense of the maker’s identity and cultural origins.
• Both traditional and non-traditional lace making techniques and materials are acceptable. Lace can be hand-constructed and decorated, machine-constructed and decorated, or a combination of both.
• It can be two- or three-dimensional.
• There are categories for traditional techniques, fashion, built environment and digital multi media lace design.
• Finalists will be chosen from expressions of interest and their work must be made and completed in 2010.
• An entry can be submitted by up to two people who will then be credited equally.

JUDGING CRITERIA

The work will be judged by a panel of international and Australian experts drawn from traditional and contemporary disciplines of lace, fashion, design and architecture with reference to:

• Visual impact
• Originality and creativity
• Innovation in design, materials and/or technique
• Conceptual interpretation of ‘place’ or origin
• Skill in execution

Works will be selected for consideration for exhibition in June 2011. Overall winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition.

CATEGORIES

There are two award categories:

1. Open Category

    International artists, designers and practitioners (professional or amateur)

2. Tertiary students of design in Australia and New Zealand

    Students enrolled in Australia or New Zealand at the time they submit their expression of interest

PRIZES (only one prize will be awarded to each entry)

Category 1: Open

Category 2: Tertiary students in Australia and New Zealand

People’s Choice Award

KEY DATES

Introduce your work to the world. Enter Communication Arts magazine’s 51st Illustration Competition. Hundreds of award-winning images are selected for their creative excellence—by an esteemed jury of designers and art directors—in editorial, advertising, institutional, for sale and unpublished categories.

Why enter? CA’s Award of Excellence is one of the most-coveted awards in the industry. If chosen, winning places you in the highest ranks of your profession. Ask any creative director which competitions rank as the most influential, and they’ll place Communication Arts at the top of the list.

• Entries submitted after January 8, 2010 require a $10 per entry late fee. No entries will be accepted after January 22, 2010.

To Enter Online NOW:
submit2.commarts.com

Aalto University is a newly created university resulting from the merger of three Finnish universities the Helsinki School of Economics, the University of Art and Design and the Helsinki University of Technology – all leading and renowned institutions in their respective fields and in their own right. Aalto University will begin operating in January 2010, and open up a new world of possibilities for multidisciplinary education and research.

Recently Aalto University got its identity, selected after competition, and winning bid triggered a fierce discussion among members of pingstate.nu, a local forum of graphic designers. Unfortunately this site is in Finnish, so maybe translate.google.com will do a trick.

Here the link to the original identity file.

Electrolux, a global leader in home and professional appliances, selected Cocoon as the Electrolux Design Lab ’09 winner. The announcement was made at the finals in London on September 24, 2009, at 100% Design London, the UK’s leading architecture and design event.

“Cocoon” is a sustainable response to the world’s growing population and its desire to consume meat and fish. Similar to heating popcorn in a microwave, Cocoon prepares genetically engineered and pre-packaged meat and fish dishes by heating muscle cells identified by radio frequency identification (RFID) signals. The signals detect the specific dish and then suggest the required cooking time. This process uses science to create food, lifting a burden on the planet by reducing the need for further intensive farming and fishing. The negative effects of this process, including the mass transportation of food around the world, clearing of land and distortion of ecosystems, are then negated.

Jury motivation

A jury of internationally-recognized designers judged the entries based on intuitive design, innovation, and consumer insight. Their motivation: “Cocoon addresses a controversial issue that is very real: humankind’s continued desire to eat meat and fish. A great design concept polarizes opinion, and this is exactly what Cocoon achieves by exploring this issue. An inviting, tactile design, the Cocoon resembles a gemstone with a metal accent reflecting the heritage of the Swedish art-glass industry. Cocoon meets all of the brief’s criteria: it is daring, cutting edge and truly innovative in its focus on social and environmental issues.

How to use 500 Pencils?

Brief: How would YOU use 500 Colored Pencils?

We’re looking for the most ingenious and imaginative ways to use the 500 Colored Pencils - ways to go beyond everyday use. Think creatively!

Prize: $1,000 and a set of 500 Colored Pencils

Deadline: October 5th, 2009

Click Here for details on the competition and the 500 Colored Pencils project.

500 colors, names, stories.

500pencils.com

Electrolux launched promotional campaign for their Ergorapido Cyclonic 2 in 1, in this time it’s a competition, where participants submits photos of their homes to have a chance to win Ergorapido or grand prize - a trip to London, Nice, or Istanbul and 5000€ worth of furnishing goods.

I was proudly accepted the invitation of Electrolux to participate in Jury, and started to vote on submissions. In jury also participating well known bloggers and designers:

ASHLEY WHITE http://decorology.blogspot.com

MARTIN ŽAMPACH http://designeast.eu/

KIM LIM, Studio Chief Designer of Electrolux Industrial Design Centre Stockholm.

So what do you waiting for? Go to competition site and submit photos of your inspiring interior design at Ergorapido site: http://www.ergorapido.com/

You can also follow Ergorapido blog: http://www.ergorapido.com/blog

Enter DESIGN 21’s Wood, Paper, Checkmark Competition

What’s this? A competition to design an awareness campaign for sustainable forestry. This is a call-to-action campaign that asks targeted consumers to purchase FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) products as a means of protecting forests around the world.

For who? The Nature Conservancy and the Forest Stewardship Council (US).

And why? The winning campaign will be put to use by The Nature Conservancy.

What else? First prize $5,000 Total prize pool $10,000

OK when? By January 13, 2009 (don’t leave it till the last minute!)

For details or to enter CLICK HERE!

The Flatshare fridge, with separate, portable modules powered by a single base station has won first prize in the Electrolux Design Lab 2008 competition. Conceived by Stefan Buchberger of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Flatshare also won the media award and the people’s choice award. iBasket, the transparent clothes hamper that automatically starts a wash load when it fills up, came in second. It was designed by Guopeng Liang, from Tongji University in China. Coox, the portable, adaptable cooker, by Antoine Lebrun of L’École de Design Nantes L’Atlantique, in France, took third place.

Link: http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/

Call for Entries!

Sustainable Wood Competition and Challenge

DESIGN 21 is pleased to announce a new set of environmentally conscious initiatives for The Nature Conservancy and FSC-US.

Wood, Paper, Checkmark
Design an awareness campaign for sustainable forestry
Prize Pool: $10,000
Deadline: January 13, 2009
Going With the Grain
Design an object using one sheet of sustainable wood
Prize: 2 prototypes made - one for you, one for auction to benefit TNC’s Forestry Program
Deadline: June 2, 2009

Visit www.design21sdn.com for details

DECT Forum requires exciting ideas for home communication products and services

Berne, Switzerland, July 2, 2008. The DECT Forum invites design students from all over the world to participate in the first international CAT-iq Design Competition and investigate in the future of broadband home communication.

This is an opportunity for design students from various disciplines to showcase their creativity and exciting ideas to an international jury of industry leading companies: The following experts will judge the submissions:
* Vincent Buet (Director Consumer Marketing, Philips) * Pieter Hermans (Chairman of the Jury, CEO Jakajima). * Erich Kamperschroer (Chairman and President DECT Forum) * Nicholas Rhodes (Director of St. Martins College London) * Lesley Taylor (Head of Design, SGW Europe) * C.H. Tong (President, VTech) More information about the jury at: www.catiqdesigncompetition.org/jury.html

The DECT Forum would like to encourage students’ creative thinking to conceive the future of home communication. There is almost no limit on the creative and innovative opportunities of the CAT-iq technology. The home communication industry is challenging participants in the competition in two basic areas:
* Products – stylish non-computing hardware devices * Innovative and new services that can be offered by telecom network operators

“DECT Forum grants that inventors will stay owner of their own ideas. We will promote and market the best entries but will not claim intellectual property rights. This means that design students can not only win excellent cash prizes but additionally, the companies, who are sponsoring the competition will be interested to identify talented students for opportunities in their own organizations, says Erich Kamperschroer, Chairman of the DECT Forum.

For the winners of the CAT-iq Design Competition these prizes are available: * First prize: 10,000 € * Second prize: 5,000 € * Third runner-up prize: 1,000 €

The registration closes on September 19, 2008. The deadline for the submission of entries is October 10, 2008. Winners will be announced on November 14, 2008. Interested design students find all details and contacts at www.catiqdesigncompetition.org and www.cat-iq.org