Push the envelope

When Design Week celebrated its 20th birthday in September, we decided to mark that milestone, and also the magazine’s 21st year, with a series of activities. Inevitably, some initiatives traced design’s history over that action-packed 20-year period, but we also wanted to embrace the future.

To that end, Glenn Tutssel, executive creative director at Enterprise IG, briefed a group of students on paid placement at the consultancy to create a Design Week Christmas card. The students, from an array of colleges, had been selected by Tutssel for Enterprise IG’s ongoing student programme.

Given a loose brief, all of them chose to ignore Christmas, believing that DW’s birthday was sufficient celebration. Tutssel and I were very comfortable with this view and unanimous in our selection of the winner and commended entries.

Everyone gave the project a fair shot – and we thank them for their efforts. But we thought Chloe Templeman’s simple photographic ‘XX’ concept was an outstanding, witty take on the topic that thoroughly deserved to win.

Credit is also due though to Sarah Nadin and Ryan Tym for their commended entries. You can’t fail to feel festive with candles and lightbulbs – reminiscent of the Design Week Awards identity – in the mix.

Winner: Chloe Templeman, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee

‘The design had to have a quick and snappy way of showing 20 years of Design Week. The concept is simple. “XX” stands for 20 in Roman numerals. I wanted to avoid the use of the Arabic numerals everyone is accustomed to and liked the simplicity and shape the Xs created. I have used magazines to form the Xs. This way it is obvious at first glance that it represents Design Week. The final solution could be shown as an image or used as a logo. It also has the potential to be translated to 3D and sent as a gift.’

Runner up: Sarah Nadin, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading

The brief was challenging in that it presented all of us with the opportunity to showcase our design ideas in any medium or format. I aimed to demonstrate the success of Design Week in becoming the leading voice of the industry.

My solution shows 20 birthday candles, the stems of which depict covers of Design Week from the past 20 years, demonstrating not only the life of Design Week throughout that period, but also events and trends in the design industry. These are seemingly illuminated by the candle flames, which form the message “Design Week 20 years old”, representing the notion that Design Week highlights the industry’s news and events to the design world.’

Runner up: Ryan Tym, University College Falmouth

‘The thinking behind my solution was to push the brief beyond just a birthday card. I wanted to create an entire birthday celebration which could be mailed out, allowing individuals to hold a Design Week party in their own office. The resulting “Party in a Box” contains a card, a slice of cake, a commemorative poster, a balloon and a special edition Design Week magazine.

Inspiration for the product was drawn from the light bulb symbol, often associated with the magazine through its yearly awards. I adapted this into the zero of “20” and turned it into a celebratory balloon. The idea that the publication has been “illuminating design for 20 years” allowed me to draw visual language from celebrations and illuminations, such as candles and fireworks. The copy was then kept laid-back and relevant to the theme – for example, the balloon tag features the phrase “Flying high for 20 years”.’