SURTEX, North America’s event for the selling and licensing of original art and design, named four up-and-coming designers from Canada, England and Mexico who were selected as the 2015 winners of designext, an annual international design competition honoring art and design students for exceptional surface design work.
The four winning designs will be on view at SURTEX for the duration of the show slated to run May 17-19 at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. On Monday, May 18, one of the students will be designated by designext judges as the “grand-prize winner” and awarded a $1,000 prize.
“SURTEX is proud to recognize the creative concepts, as well as vast potential, of these talented young designers through our designext awards. The competition’s exceptional global talent pool offers an exciting preview of the future of surface design,” said Liz Crawford, vice president and group show director, SURTEX.
The 2015 challenge themed “The New Urban Grunge,” required entrants to create six original surface designs and translate their application to a product collection. Students could choose one of four categories: WEAR (apparel, personal accessories), WORK (office furniture and upholstery, wall coverings, desk accessories etc.), LIVE (sheets, comforters, tablecloths, dinnerware) and PLAY (gift bags, wrapping paper, journals etc.). A pool of 76 submissions from 17 schools around the world, were judged by a panel of distinguished industry professionals on factors such as originality and marketplace viability.
The winners of the 2015 designext awards are Lucy Harris, a senior working toward a B.A. in Fashion and Textile Design at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK, for her project “Side Streets” in the WEAR category, inspired by the New York youth culture of the early ‘90s; Daniela Ruiz working toward a degree in Textile Design from the Universidad Iberoamericana de Puebla in Puebla, Mexico, for “Vintage Grunge” in the LIVE category, an amalgamation of popular trends showcasing a simple color palette and a mix of textures; Hannah Wilkinson, a senior at the Leeds College of Art in the UK, in her final year of studies for a B.A. in Printed Textiles and Surface Pattern Design, for “The New Urban Grunge” in the WORK category, which updates grunge for a modern-day corporate look while drawing on influences from the industrial landscapes of Northern England; and Lucas Woolley, a junior at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, for his “Cement Garden” in the WEAR category, a mix of static and organic shapes that stay true to the neutrals found in urban areas while delivering a pop of color.
Judges for the 2015 edition of designext are David Laubach, design director, Avanti Press Inc.; Ronnie Gold, vice president of design, Home Accent Fabrics; Bryan Parker, vice president of design, CHF Industries; Nancy Fire, founder and creative director of Design Works International and Diane Piemonte, vice president of creative services for Revman International.
