Design Turkey Industrial Design Awards Announce Their Winners
The Design Turkey Industrial Design Awards were presented this year for the eighth time. At the ceremony, 62 designs and designers received awards in 13 categories. İsmail Gülle, Chairman of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), said: “With our design competition, we are boosting the creative power of industries while bringing together students, industrialists, academics and entrepreneurs, and supporting the original designs of talented young people. Next year, by bringing the design week together with all stakeholders of the design ecosystem, we aim to turn it into a valuable global design brand for Istanbul.”
The Design Turkey Industrial Design Awards were presented as part of the Design Week Turkey 2019 event. The event was coordinated by the Ministry of Trade and hosted by the Turkish Exporters Assembly. The aim is to contribute to Türkiye building brands through design. First, a selection committee of Turkish and international designers evaluated the 286 designs submitted. The committee then handed out a total of 62 awards: 8 for superior design, 36 for good design and 18 conceptual awards. The awards spanned 13 categories.
Gülle explained the importance of design
“We are working to make design a culture.”
TIM Chairman İsmail Gülle also spoke at the ceremony, highlighting the importance of design for value-added production. Gülle said: “To reach the goal of a Türkiye with a foreign trade surplus, we must correctly determine how we will create sustainable exports and added value. Brand and design are among the essentials for creating value-added products. We are working with all our strength to produce more designers from these lands. With our design competition, we are boosting the creative power of industries while bringing together students, industrialists, academics and entrepreneurs, and supporting the original designs of talented young people. Next year, by bringing the design week together with all stakeholders of the design ecosystem, we aim to turn it into a valuable global design brand for Istanbul.”
Gülle pointed out that, as TIM, they have put their name to initiatives in design and innovation that have become traditions. This work is carried out with the support and coordination of the Exporters’ Associations and the Ministry of Trade. He continued: “Design is a concept present in every area of life. As the Turkish Exporters Assembly, we are working tirelessly to establish this awareness and to make design a culture. Over 27 years, together with our valued exporters’ associations, we have organised more than 250 design competitions.
Design competitions boost the creative power of industries while bringing together students, industrialists, academics and entrepreneurs, and support the original designs of talented young people. Our young designers who place in the competitions also represent us successfully on the international stage. In addition to design competitions, our Ministry of Trade and our Ministry of Industry and Technology provide comprehensive design support to our companies. Thanks to this support, our companies focus on design projects, employ more qualified staff and create added value in production, making a significant and sustainable contribution to exports.
Today we have a total of 352 design centres operating in 24 provinces and employing 7,329 people. These centres have begun to bear fruit. From the 5,032 completed and ongoing projects, the number of patents obtained to date has reached 371.”
A global design message from Gülle
“Many global designers will emerge from these lands.”
İsmail Gülle said: “When it comes to design, we swell with pride in the world. In the world ranking compiled by World Design Rankings, a study covering design in close to 100 different sectors such as automotive, architecture, agriculture, medical and textile design, we rank seventh among the countries with the world’s best designers. In competitions with hundreds of designers from dozens of countries, our designers, with their successes and the awards they win, carry our country ahead of design giants such as Germany, the Netherlands and Korea. I believe that many more global designers and many more great masters will emerge from these lands, where the first ceramics were produced in 6000 BC and where the finest design products such as carpets, fabrics and jewellery have been made for hundreds of years. We are ready to mobilise the resources that can broaden the horizons of you designers and to support you all the way.”
Superior design awards presented
At the Design Turkey Industrial Design Awards 2019, eight designs won Superior Design Awards. First, Aslı Ökmen won with Arçelik’s Yeni Telve design. Tamer Yüksek also won with Beko’s Powerclean design. Fulden Topaloğlu received an award for Studio Kali’s Sama Furniture Series design. Next, Ece Yalım and Oğuz Yalım won an award for İkizler Aydınlatma’s Rest design. Fatih Özger and Şenol Duman received an award for Kütahya Porselen’s Multicoloured Dinner Set design. Kunter Şekercioğlu, Özüm Özkan and Sude Edebali also won for Kütahya Porselen’s Ayla Porcelain Dinner Set design. What is more, Utkan Kızıltuğ received an award for Bürotime’s Era Home work desk design. Finally, Seda Palanduz won with Orfis’s Office Waiting Chair design. The award-winning brands and designers then collected their awards, which were presented by Minister of Trade Ruhsar Pekcan and TIM Chairman İsmail Gülle.
You can visit the Design Turkey website here.
If you would like to watch the interviews with the first-place winners of the Design Week Fashion Design Category competition, you can find them in the video below.
Why do industrial design awards matter?
The figures reported sum up the scope of the awards well. The selection committee evaluated 286 designs and then gave a total of 62 awards: 8 superior, 36 good and 18 conceptual, across 13 categories. The awards were presented as part of Design Week Turkey 2019. The Ministry of Trade coordinated the event, and the Turkish Exporters Assembly hosted it. The awards therefore aim to contribute to Türkiye building brands through design.
Industrial design is a discipline that considers the function, aesthetics and manufacturability of the products we use in everyday life together. These products range from furniture to household appliances and from packaging to vehicles. It also has a strong kinship with fashion design: both bring together the user’s needs, the material and the aesthetics of the time within the same product. Competitions like this bring together a wide range of people, from students to industrialists, and thus help new designers become visible.
You can also take a look at our article on young Turkish designers, in which we cover the international successes of Turkish designers. For the competition’s latest announcements and past award-winning designs, you can visit Design Turkey’s official website.