There are always interesting competitions to be found at the DESIGN 21 Social Design Network. This time they called to enter a new logo for the UNESCO Award of Excellence for Handicrafts.

The UNESCO “Award of Excellence for Handicrafts” aims to encourage artisans to produce handicrafts using traditional skills, patterns and themes in an innovative way, in order to ensure the continuity and sustainability of these traditions and skills.

An interesting institution like this I could not stop myself and design a logo for the competition. It should display the detailedness, precision and sleight of hand a craftsman has to fulfil. So you see the three stars that stand for excellence and were brought there by a calm hand and a pair of tweezers.

By the way: if you like it, you can vote for my draft. Click on the VOTE button and click to page 20 and you’ll find it. Unfortunately one has to register at DESIGN 21 first. But to anyone interested in social design this is the right platform anyhow.

Only one month is left to prepare and submit applications to the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the premier international prize program that awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge from Buckminster Fuller Institute on Vimeo.

Jury
Each year systems thinkers and design pioneers across a wide spectrum of human endeavor are invited from all over the world to be on the Jury and select a winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Past jury members have included Janine Benyus, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Helena Norberg-Hodge, John Thackara, Hazel Henderson, Danny Hillis, Alan Kay, Hunter Lovins, Bill Browning, José Zaglul, William McDonough, Adam Bly, Greg Watson and Vandana Shiva.

Entries
Past entries include visionary strategies from a radical solution to human transportation in the world’s largest cities to a strategy to dramatically increase crop yields and economic development in remote African villages. While the entries cover a broad range of topics, the common thread among them is a highly integrated approach to design — one that is simultaneously comprehensive, anticipatory and aligned with nature’s fundamental principles. This focus on an integrated design strategy is what distinguishes the Challenge and the innovators who have submitted their work from other prize programs.

The deadline for entries is 5pm (Eastern Standard Time) on Monday, October 4, 2010. For the call for entries, instructions for how to enter, reference materials, and much more, visit http://challenge.bfi.org

This competition calls for a logo that represents the DREAM Center program of the UNESCO/Tribute 21 Fund. The logo is intended to be used on the program’s stationery, brochures, and collateral materials including possibly in video clips, on signage and on the web.

UNESCO/Tribute 21 DREAM Centers is an arts education program for children – DREAM stands for Dance, Read, Express, Art, Music. The project was inaugurated in 2003 with the goal of providing underprivileged children, especially in post-conflict regions, the opportunities and tools to express themselves creatively. This is based on the belief that creative expression is a powerful source of self-confidence and essential to child development.

DREAM Center programs serve a need that is not being met by programs that address basic needs (food, shelter, health care, etc.). Considered non-essential, art is often left out. DREAM programs – sometimes physical structures included – are built in partnership with a local NPO. Established locations include Kabul, Afghanistan; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monrovia, Liberia, and East Jerusalem. The UNESCO/Tribute 21 Fund is a project partnership between UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Felissimo, a global design and merchandising company.

Application Closes November 17, 2009. Public Voting from November 19, 2009 to November 26, 2009. Results will be announced on December 08, 2009. More information via Design21 Social Design Network.

Royal Philips Electronics has been awarded the prestigious INDEX:Award in the category Home, for the Chulha, Philips’ innovative sustainable, healthy cooking stove. The INDEX: Award is a bi-annual award that supports the INDEX mission to generate more design to improve life of higher quality all over the world.

The Chulha is a result of the Philips Design workshop entitled “a sustainable design vision – design for sense and simplicity”. It was designed to limit the dangerous health effects caused by smoke from the traditional indoor cooking in many rural areas of the developing world. Philips Design worked together with local stakeholders, including end-users, in India to realize the Chulha. As its philanthropic contribution to sustainable development Philips Design allows local stakeholders to use the Intellectual Property for free. The relatively cheap production process stimulates local entrepreneurial activities for the replication and the diffusion of the Chulha. Potential local entrepreneurs receive training to produce, install and maintain the stoves in order to serve the villages in rural areas.

More information via INDEX.

The design, architecture and contemporary creativity biennale is inviting individuals and groups to submit a twenty second video and get the chance to win special passes to this year’s ExperimentaDesign (EXD) in Lisbon.

For the introductory video competition, EXD is looking for daring creative work, unique visions that are both inspired, insightful, challenging and outside the box. Distinctive artistic statements in their own right, these video works must reflect the Biennale’s spirit and convey a particular vision of the theme for EXD’09: It’s About Time. Submitted work should have also considered the look and feel of the communication for EXD’09 Lisboa created by Creative Director, Ian Anderson.

The winning video will be featured as part of the EXD’09 communication campaign including EXD events internationally, in a variety of channels, including television, the web and street video displays. The author(s) of the winning video will be invited to attend EXD’09 in Lisbon during the Opening Week including accommodation and an all access pass. EXD will also shortlist 5 runners-up who will receive all access passes to the biennale.

The competition is open worldwide to professionals and students over 18 years of age and will be judged by Ian Anderson and members of the EXD communication team. Submission deadline is 10 July 2009. Detailed information for download: the competition rules and the design templates. There is also a section at Vimeo for the competition.

Geruchsexpertin Sissel Tolaas

Vom 24. bis 25. Juni 2009 findet in Berlin eine Veranstaltung statt, die sich mit den 5 Sinnen beschäftigt: das 5 GUM Vision Lab. Jeder Sinn wird von einem Experten repräsentiert. LOOK von der Modedesignerin Eley Kishimoto, HEAR vom Produzenten und DJ Ewan Pearson, SMELL von der Geruchstforscherin Sissel Tolaas, TASTE von der Molekularköchin Telse Bus, TOUCH wird repräsentiert von den Objektdesignerinnen von FRONT. Kurator ist Holm Friebe. Jeder Experte hält einen Vortrag und leitet einen Workshop.

Teilnehmen können allerdings nur diejenigen, die sich bis zum 31. Mai mit außergewöhnlichen Projekten rund um die 5 Sinne bewerben und unter den besten 10 Projekten landen. Dem Gewinner winken zusätzlich 10,000 Euro. Initiiert wird der Wettbewerb von Wrigley, die im Juni ein neues Kaugummi launchen, eben das “5 GUM”. Ein aufwendig geplantes und inhaltlich viel versprechendes Projekt – ein Besuch der Website lohnt sich. Alleine um Ideen und Impressionen rund um die fünf Sinne zu gewinnen.

Good50x70 is a project that collects poster designs and provides it to charitable institutions like Amnesty International, Greenpeace or the WWF. The makers call it “Creativity for free” – the creative community should be a “force for good”. Yet they stemmed already fifteen workshops, twenty exhibitions and over 4,000 posters – a respectable success. (Image credits: Simonluca Definis).

The next exhibition of the posters will be held at La Triennale Gallery in Milan. The exhibition will open on the 19th of June, and will end on the 12th of July. The exhibition will be preceded by a set of workshops led by three of Good 50×70′s jury members: Alain Le Quernec, Woody Pirtle and Yossi Lemel. The workshops will all take place at different schools in Milan on the 15th, 16th and 17th of June.

However I think that one poster is missing – it is a graffiti we found in Sydney. Seb saved it on a picture.

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.

»Envision conscious design!« is the theme of the new Braun Prize 2009. The internationally recognised design competition is open to young industrial designers who are still studying or who have graduated within the last two years.

In the coming days, some thousands sets of competition documentation will be sent out to design schools,
universities and design studios all over the world.

Closing date: January 31, 2009

Current industrial design students as well as recent graduates have until January 31, 2009 to submit their product concepts to Braun (the participation is free of charge). The total prize money amounts to EUR 36,000. The winner of the BraunPrize will receive EUR 12,000 in prize money and a (paid) six-month internship in the Design Department at Braun. The other finalists will each receive a prize of EUR 5,000.

The remaining prize money will be distributed in the form of special recognition awards at the discretion of the jury. More on the BraunPrize website.

hotel furnishing in Bulgaria

I cannot imagine that New York City is a good spot for cycling through the city, but it seems that the administration is promoting cycling as a »mainstream transportation option«. But as cars, bikes also need space to park them when they are not in motion. NYC is looking for new bicycle racks and that is why the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), in partnership with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the support of Google Inc. and Transportation Alternatives announces the »CityRacks Design Competition«:

The purpose of the competition is to develop functional, well-designed sidewalk racks and to generate new concepts for bicycle parking inside commercial and residential buildings. These two initiatives, in addition to NYCDOT’s commitment to increasing the number of miles of bicycle facilities, providing the City’s first sheltered bike parking stations and creating more bicycle parking at transit stations, will raise the profile of bicycling as a convenient mode of transportation in New York.

Although bicycle lanes are the most noticeable element of the City’s cycling infrastructure, access to parking is also essential. Indeed, a study conducted by the Department of City Planning found that lack of access to secure bike parking was the primary reason cyclists did not ride to work. The current standard fixture for bicycle parking consists of variations of a fabricated square steel tube called the “CityRack” that is mounted on sidewalks. These fixtures occupy little space on the sidewalk and do not obstruct the flow of people or goods. New York City currently has thousands of CityRacks within its five boroughs and plans to add thousands more in the foreseeable future. The CityRack design, however, has been in use for over ten years and does not fulfill the potential to be an icon for New York City cycling.

The City intends to use the winning sidewalk rack as its new standard for bicycle parking. The design for the in-building rack will first be installed by Google in its New York City headquarters. It may also be used by City-owned buildings in the future, when possible.

Design for public spaces is always an interesting and challenging task as so many people get into contact with the object. This requires special materials but also a gestaltung that goes d’accord with a broader common aesthetics. And: what could be more bootlicking to see your design in New York City used by millions?

Picture by Flickr user Fußgänger. More information on the competiton here. And an intersting book about the subject of public design, called »Designing Public. Perspectives for the public.«