Category: Photography

Earlier in the year, we put out the call for entries for the 2017 A’ Design Award & Competition, an annual award and competition celebrating the most exciting, innovative creations from top designers, architects and design-oriented companies worldwide.

Now we’re pleased to present you with the results, hot off the press from this year’s expert jury panel. The grand total of winners is 1958 Winners from 98 countries in 97 different design disciplines — including packaging design, advertising, marketing and communication design, photography and photo manipulation design, graphics and visual communication design and interior space and exhibition design. The full list of winners and winning designs is available here.

If you’re working as a designer and missed out on this year’s entry process, it’s not too early to start thinking about entering for the next round. The 2018 competition is now open. Interested designers, artists, architects and companies can register and submit their works here. You’ll also find everything you need to know about the entry process, such as evaluation criteria, key dates, list of jury members, entry forms and presentation guidelines.

And in the meantime, for some entry and general design inspiration, take a look at 10 of our favorite winning designs from this year.

Wave Table by Attila Stromajer

Black Eagle by Perathoner Architects

Box C by Ivan Gorozhankin

AS Offices by Xavier Abreu

Le Plan Libre by Nic Lee

White Z Veranda by Ning Zhang

Carybe by Ronald Scliar Sasson

Léon Interactive Light by Lewis Power

Punjab Kesari Headquarters Office by Amit Gupta & Britta Knobel Gupta

Bent LED interior luminaire by Simona Hrušková

– In collaboration with A’ Design Award & Competition –

The New York-based photographer Tim Eastman documents in his project ‘Citizens of War’ the war in Donbass with the portraits of people and the images of rural areas, destroyed homes, empty cupboards and fields abandoned to weeds. The photographs describe struggles and sorrows through the stories of small people, caught in the crossfire of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict.

While each photograph is a chronicle of the reality that tells its own story, it‘s literally underlined with a thought or a quote by its protagonist. People describe to photographer their realities and worries, sometimes reminiscing of comelier times prior to the shelling and damages caused by war. “I visited Ukraine and photographed people living at the doorstep of war…These photographs are meant to show the world of people who are forced to live in the midst of war. They aren’t soldiers, they’re just ordinary people trying to live a normal life in impossible circumstances,” says Eastman.

Alain Delorme’s photo series ‘Totems’ is a homage to couriers of Shanghai adeptly carrying neat stacks of burdens on their vehicles. These vibrant and vivid images capture everyday life of ordinary people, while materializing it as an insightful and subtle access to the world of underprivileged Chinese society.

While the piles of bottles, card boxes, chairs, old cables or even cut flowers seem like conceptual sculptures, the photographer with Photoshop turned the working people of Shangai into a real-life heroes and artists. After discovering this “extended reality”, the bystander can’t do nothing but just question the paradoxes of consumer culture and wealth distribution. The Paris-based photographer Alain Delorme created the photographs in a period between 2009- 2011, during his two artistic residencies in Shangai, organized by Ailing Foundation. “I took 6000 photos to create the final series of 18 images. Using Photoshop, I increased the amount of goods to give the impression that the carrier is being engulfed … This is to represent how our obsession with consuming the ‘Made in China’ products they carry creates a kind of slavery,” explained Delorme in an interview to The Guardian about his extraordinary project.

Located in Quebec, Canada, the house designed by the Paris-based architecture studio Delordinaire stands on a snow-laden slope and is elevated with stilts.

Named ‘High House‘, the structure is clad with white concrete panels and corrugated metal, while its interior is made in wood to underline the warmth of the living spaces. In addition, the inside of the house is well-lit all day long thanks to its big windows. “This winter chalet uses the stilt typology to create a protected ground floor area with an outdoor stove, providing an unusual space where residents can be among nature and the snowy exterior, while still enjoying protection from the elements,” say the architects.

New York City-based photographer Alexander Rotondo takes quiet, light-filled photographs filled with stillness and contemplation.

In contrast to the fast-paced tempo of his city, Rotundo’s images reveal his eye for the peaceful moments in between, which he captures in a poetic manner. Containing a combination of still lives, portraits and everyday details that others might gloss over, his portfolio and blog make for a calming and visually delightful scroll. The accompanying text to the series reads, “This is an ongoing series of photographs exploring memory and its ability to be misshaped by the passing of time. Rotondo aims to question the space (physical and metaphorical) between two lovers. Through these vignettes of time, Rotondo begins to unravel his own memory, exploring the relationships between past and present.”