A chance for students to win fame, acclaim, prizes…and a *&%t hot job!

Initiated by Think (the SA Communication Design Council) and Sappi, the Sappi Thinkahead Student Portfolio Awards is the ONLY awards platform aimed at helping final year designers prepare their portfolios for the job interviews and achieve recognition for an outstanding collection of work.

This year’s call to entry campaign challenges students to put their greatest design work into a “Best of 2009” hit compilation… which has the potential to go Gold or Platinum at the Sappi Thinkahead Awards and capture the attention of top design talent scouts.

The portfolio compilation must be uploaded at www.thinkaheadawards.org.za by 6 November 2009 to be eligible for judging by a panel of design legends.

Prizes

Students will be recognised for individual projects (Merits and Silvers), but the Top 3 awards will go to the best portfolio compilations of 2009!
Platinum Prize: Apple iPhone and Woolworths gift voucher
Two Gold Prizes: Apple iPods and Woolworths gift vouchers

The top 3 will also win a ticket to the Young Designers Simulcast at the 2010 Design Indaba. All winners will receive Design Books, sponsored by The Loerie Awards and Affinity Publishing.

Institutions can benefit to

The institution that is awarded the coveted Top Institution accolade will receive Design Books for the school, along with a one Ticket to the 2010 Design Indaba in Cape Town!

Promoting Best of 2009

In mid October, institutions will receive promotional material, to help students prepare their entries.

The red carpet event

On Wednesday, 25 November 2009, the prestigious awards ceremony will find out which campus has the hits…or the B-sides, whose compilations will go Gold and whose will achieve the coveted Platinum Portfolio of 2009!

Enter now!

Entries close 6 November 2009.

Visit www.thinkaheadawards.org.za for more info. (Entry website to launch soon!)

Event: David Goldblatt
Some Afrikaners Revisited Exhibition
Venue: The Main Building at Oliewenhuis Art Museum
Period: 21 October 2009 – 10 January 2010

Oliewenhuis Art Museum is exhibiting David Goldblatt’s Some Afrikaners Revisited photography, an expanded view of a body of work first published in 1975 as Some Afrikaners Photographed.

Between 1961 and 1968 Goldblatt photographed Afrikaners, initially around small-holdings near Randfontein, next in the Marico Bushveld and then more generally. Some of the black and white photographs were reproduced in specialist magazines, but it took Goldblatt until 1975 to find a publisher for the book that he envisaged – today a much-sought-after collector’s item.

The exhibition and the new book contain all but one of the photographs reproduced in the 1975 book (some that were previously cropped are now shown in their entirety), as well as 20 additional photographs taken at the same time. The book, published by Umuzi, has been available since 2007.

Goldblatt has been critically exploring South African society through his photographs for more than half a century, and has received international recognition for his work. He was the first South African to be given a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1998. His retrospective, David Goldblatt: Fifty-one years, toured galleries and museums in New York, Barcelona, Rotterdam, Lisbon, Oxford, Brussels, Munich and Johannesburg between 2001 and 2005. In July 2006 his work was the subject of a retrospective at the Rencontres festival in Arles, France. In 2006 he was awarded the Hasselblad Award in recognition of his lifelong achievements. This award was presented in Göteborg, Sweden, on 25 November 2006. On 16 June 2009 he was awarded the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for his project “TJ”, a work in progress about the city of Johannesburg.

David Goldblatt will present a walkabout of his exhibition on Wednesday, 21 October 2009 at 11:00. Photography students and anyone interested in documentary photography must attend this special walkabout.

For more information please contact Oliewenhuis Art Museum on 051 447 9609 or oliewen@nasmus.co.za
Oliewenhuis Art Museum, 16 Harry Smith Street, Arboretrum, Bloemfontein
Museum hours: Mondays to Fridays 08:00 – 17:00
Saturdays 10:00 – 17:00
Sundays 13:00 – 17:00
Public Holidays 13:00 – 17:00
The museum is closed on Good Friday and Christmas Day.

“Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.”

Learn more about Paul Rand on Logo Design Love Blog.

From the website:

For those that have missed the hype, been in rehab, having a nervous breakdown, or just generally missing out on the hottest news – this year’s theme is Be Big In Digital. Let’s face it, haven’t all of us in wanted our 15 minutes of fame … or more? All those bright ideas, clever placements and tactical approaches need to be given their moment of glory. So here’s hoping you have some fantastic entries ready to wow the competition.

The Bookmarks celebrates digital media in all its guises, and is coordinated by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) as a means to promote digital media in South Africa, and establish it as a standard part of the marketing mix.

The flurry of activity over the next few months culminates in a glorious week-long digital event that will see everyone in the digital community gather together to discuss, debate, learn and ultimately reward all those that have made a difference. So check out the key dates, sign up for our regular updates and book your diary for the 2nd week in November.

About The Bookmarks

It’s Digital’s time to be big. Step aside print, TV and radio.

The 2nd Bookmarks Awards will celebrate the brave agencies and publishers who push the boundaries, come up with incredible creative concepts and manage, despite all the odds, to make a difference for advertisers and industry players.

The Bookmarks aims to benchmark the best in digital media, for both publishers and advertisers, whilst at the same time promote digital as an integral part of the marketing mix.

The Bookmarks will reward creativity, results and online media excellence. Have you performed miracles, or come up with a concept that really worked for your client or business? Have you come up with the most amazing creative execution that wowed users and got real results for advertisers? Or have you as a publisher achieved the balance between commercial success and audience appeal?

Learn more and to enter on their website.

South Africa’s favorite pop culture magazine, one small seed,  is looking for a graphic design  intern. Can’t think why someone would NOT want to work with them!!! Here is your opportunity!!! Go grab it!

Here is what one small seed had to say:

We’re looking for a graphic design intern to work with us for at least a month, but preferably longer. If you’ve got the training/qualification and are proficient in Adobe software (namely Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver) then send your graphics@onesmallseed.com.

Closing date for applications is Friday the 28th of August 2009.

Good luck!

Call for entries: Designs for the next 90 years!

Electrolux, a global leader in home appliances and appliances for professional use, launches the 7th edition of its global design competition Design Lab.

This year Electrolux celebrates its 90-year anniversary with its Design Lab theme: “Designs for the next 90 years”.

Undergraduate and graduate industrial design students are invited to compete for prize money and an internship by submitting their innovative home appliance ideas.

This year’s brief is to create thoughtfully-designed home appliances that will shape how people prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes over the next nine decades.

The design ideas should address key consumer insights such as being adaptive to time and space, provide learning and allow for individualization.

A limited number of finalists will be invited to participate in the final event in London September 24, 2009, to present their entries to a jury of high-level designers and experts.

The jury will review the entries based on intuitive design, innovation and consumer insight and then select a winner.

Prizes

The Design Lab 2009 has a First Prize of 5,000 Euro and a six-month paid internship at one of the Electrolux global design centers. The second prize is 3,000 Euro and third prize 2,000 Euro.

Registration

Entry deadline is May 31, 2009. Students may enter one entry HERE!

For more information go to their Award-winning website: www.electroluxdesignlab.com

Come on SA – let’s see what you’ve got!

OpenThinkBox™ FirstFix 2009 provides entrants with the opportunity to display their imagination, creativity and skill within a context that they choose themselves. Designers are simply challenged to make a small part of the world a better place, through design. Entrants are to identify a need within a community for a built environment, and are to execute it effectively, using technology to produce a comprehensive answer to a real problem.

Entrants are to return to basics, considering the architectural conventions of plan, section and elevation in relation to a real site. The winning submission will communicate accurately and effectively, displaying the intelligence, memorability, functionality, relevance and uniqueness of their design within its chosen location.

Autodesk® Revit is the leading sponsor of the competition, seeking to encourage awareness of the capabilities and benefits of Building Information Modelling. Entries do not have be created using Autodesk® software, but there is a prize category for the best use of Autodesk® Revit BIM technology. The winning entries in the various categories will make the best possible use of the technology available to them to ensure that their designs are presented effectively, accurately, and to the exacting standards of international architectural competitions.

The OpenThinkBox™/ First Fix 2009 design competition is divided into three categories:

‘Built Environment Professionals’

This refers to any person registered in any of the built environment professions in South Africa or any other country and authorised to carry a professional designation.

‘Built Environment Students’

This refers to any student currently enrolled at a South African or any other country’s university, university of technology or private design school or institute, and studying for a qualification in any of the built environment professions.

‘Project teams’

Project teams may be formed, comprising any number of participants and combination of skills. However, each team must be headed by a ‘Built Environment Professional’ or ‘Built Environment Student’, who shall be identified as the entrant for the purposes of the competition.

Design Brief

OpenThinkBox^TM FirstFix 2009 sets a simple and personal challenge: You are challenged as a human being and a designer to make a small part of your known world a better place for now and for the future. Find a social or societal need, or a problem or desire that is close to your heart as a designer – one that is YOUR first priority in terms of social service delivery.

Your design must communicate the nature of the community in need, where it is, and why you have chosen to improve it with your design. Your design must be created for a specific piece of land, and you must submit a compact site analysis as part of your proposal, and land access and ownership must be investigated.

The solution to the identified community’s need has no size limit, and there is no budget applied – although the organisers of the competition may well build the winning solution, if it is within a feasible budget. It is therefore imperative that a budget is included as part of the submission.

The winning solution will stand out without being overpowering, it will show respect without being condescending, and it will show compassion before it panders to the vanity of design. It will change with time, it will be durable yet elegant, and it will be something out of the ordinary that is pleasant to live with.

The winning design will be careful about what it consumes – it must be good to itself, its community, those that use it, to history and to its future. It must be culturally confident within the South African context, and must resonate with the place in which it is built. It must be South African not just in the way it looks, but in the way that it is created.

The design can leave questions unanswered, but it must resolve its own problem statement in a complete and competitive way. It can be a solution in itself, or it can be a building block that is part of a greater end result.

Entry Guidelines

• Registrations close on 30 June 2009
• Submissions are to be made by 31 July 2009
• Judging will take place during August, with winners announced during September/October 2009
• Entries must be submitted electronically, and may not comprise more than two A1 sheets when printed out.
• Entries should be submitted in .pdf format
• A complete design manifesto must be included in the presentation, and may not exceed 1000 words. This must form part of your presentation and should be considered a design element. A brief budget and a description of the site on which the design is to be built are essential.
• No personal details may appear on the face of your entry.
• Entries from outside South Africa are welcomed and encouraged, but designs should honour the South African context to allow for possible construction of the winning solution.
• BIM submissions must be submitted separately on CD.
• The following entries will be summarily disqualified: late entries; entries with names on the design; corrupt files that can not be printed; incomplete submissions; submissions that have clearly been submitted for other competitions; entries that are plagiarised; entries that are illegible or badly spelled.

Prizes

PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY

First prize

• Dell Precision M65 mobile workstation, with dual-core processors, 4GB memory capacity and wide-aspect displays
• 1 x Revit Architecture (commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R15 000

Second prize

• 1 x Revit Architecture (commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R7 000

Third prize

• 1 x Revit Architecture (commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R3 000

STUDENT CATEGORY

First prize

• Dell Precision M65 mobile workstation, with dual-core processors, 4GB memory capacity and wide-aspect displays
• 1 x Revit Architecture (Commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R7 000

Second prize

• 1 x Revit Architecture (Commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R5 000

Third prize

• 1 x Revit Architecture (Commercial version) valued at R35 000
• R2 000

Best use of Autodesk Revit BIM Technology

• Overseas trip to Brazil, to get a taste of South American architecture, for two people, 6 nights, 7 days valued at R35 000
• R10 000
• Dell 24″ Wide flat panel screen

Most efficient, sustainable design

• Green Trophy
• R5 000

Publicity

The winning professional’s and student’s entry will be publicised in the local industry press, on the competition website, and via the Autodesk® publicity network. The competition website will remain active and will display electronic versions of the winning entries, as well as all other submitted entries, in the form of an ongoing archive.

For more information visit their website: www.openthinkbox.co.za

Will also be sending out media packs with the launch, as well as those cute packages we promised everyone who is on the invitation list. If you are from the media or a creative who is still not on the list – get in contact with us. You want to be part of this!!!!

It’s almost that time of year again… Design Indaba time!

Design Indaba Conference will run from 25 to 27 February 2009, and the Design Indaba Expo will follow, opening on Friday 27 February and running until 1 March, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

Every creative in South Africa want to attend Design Indaba, but yes the tickets are expensive especially for struggling students! Design Indaba Simulcast to the rescue!

ALL YOUNG DESIGNERS ARE INVITED TO A DISCOUNTED DESIGN INDABA CONFERENCE!!

The Design Indaba Young Designers Simulcast is intended to bring the wit and wisdom of the best of the best to young designers and students under 25.This live broadcast, from the main plenary session to a second auditorium, means that those youngsters who cannot afford to attend the main Design Indaba Conference will still have access to speakers. They will watch their presentations and have a chance to interact with them at the end of the day in informal chat sessions.

At a cost of just R1 000, the future designers of South Africa will experience the foremost creative event in South Africa. Or, for only R1 160 students can get a simulcast ticket and a year’s subscription to the award-winning Design Indaba magazine, which was recently included in the Top 100 Most Innovative Magazines in the World list.

Speakers this year include Dai Fujiwara, Issey Miyake’s creative director, as well as product design giant Marcel Wanders, founder of the Moooi boutique, renowned for his gloriously whimsical interior living spaces, furniture and accessories.

South Africans may be especially interested in author and designer of Massive Change, Bruce Mau, who is driven by a sense of how design can solve problems (think stoves that burn peanut shells and super-strong fibres modelled on gecko hairs, for example).

Then there’s the most famous chef in the world today, Ferran Adrià. More of a mad scientist than a traditional cook, Adrià doesn’t just give diners food but a total experience. He is famous for his 30-course gourmet menu and sheer unpredictability. Another unpredictable artist is fellow Spaniard Javier Mariscal, whose multidisciplinary work embraces illustration, furniture, sculpture, interior design and more.

The 5.5 designers are also a must-see – four designers in their 20s who are redefining design projects in France. Their Furniture Garden and Wallpaper Games are a treat.

Interacting with design luminaries, young and older, will give young designers a glimpse of the creative processes behind exceptional work, from the flicker of ideas to the execution of full-scale projects and installations. This will prove invaluable inspiration for the under-25s hoping to forge careers in the creative industries.

Book now through Computicket.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso

School is starting again and for some graphic designs, illustrators, fashion designers, web designers and all designers and artists in South Africa, it’s their first year out of high-school, and you’re probably feeling, you’re finally doing what you want to do, you don’t have to worry about maths and science, you can just concentrate on being you and doing what you love.

We wish you huge success!

We would also like to give you our thoughts on becoming a success in your industry;

• Start working on your portfolio from day one. Online and offline!! The book is everything!
• Get out there! Visit museums, visit malls, visit pavements, learn to watch people, the psychology of the human mind plays an enormous role in this industry. If you learn to read people, you’ll do work that’s relevant, interesting and powerful.
• Care about something! Designers and artists have the tendency not to care a lot about what’s going on around them in the world. Knowing what’s going on in your country and the world, will give your work heart. Tt can make your work last forever, make it appropriate and dare I say award-winning. Get involved in your local community, vote (small things can make a huge difference), read the newspaper, stand up for something you believe in!!!
• Let creativity always lead the way you think – idea first, execution second! Don’t let your computer own you.
• Read. Read everything! Read things you like, read things you don’t like, read junk mail, read lamppost posters, just READ! You’ll do work that’s smart, you’ll form your own opinion, you’ll learn from other peoples mistakes.

Do this, and work hard, and you’ll be well on your way to a successful career in this industry!

All the best for 2009!

From the team at HipnHopeful.