2014 China Design Schools League Report

As well as recognizing the best student automotive design talent, Car Design Awards China also acknowledges the school whose students have had the most success in the competition.

For the first time in the competition's five-year history, an award for Most Successful School was given, with the China Central Academy of Fine Art taking the inaugural win. The new category recognizes the institution that has entered the most prize winners and finalists into this year's competition, celebrating its excellence at nurturing the talent that is the life blood of the automotive industry.

CDN acknowledges that great teaching, as well as raw student talent, is needed to shape the work of the next generation of car designers emerging from China. So, in addition to the new School Award, CDN is publishing a league table of results of the top-ranking Chinese schools from the 2014 competition.

As well as including the number of winners each school yielded, the chart also includes the number of finalists and those shortlisted, to reveal fully the performance of each school.

Pos School Pts Winners Finalists Shortlisted 1 China Central Academy of Fine Arts 49 2 3 5 2 Huazhong University of Science and Technology 20 1 3 2 2 Jiangnan University 20 1 3 2 4 Wuhan University of Technology 17 1 2 3 5 China University of Mining and Technology 15 1 2 1 5 Hebei University of Technology 15 1 2 1 7 Nanchang University 12 1 2 2 8 Tsinghua University 11 0 0 6 9 Hunnan University 10 0 1 4 9 Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts 10 1 1 1 9 Zhegzhou University of Light Industry 10 1 1 1

Source: Judges results for 2014 competition

The scoring system breaks down as follows. Each school was given two points for each shortlisted entrant, five for each finalist, 10 for each winner, and 10 extra points for Student Design of the Year, which was won this year by China Central Academy of Fine Arts student Guo Jiayi.

Winners and finalists are not awarded additional points for being finalists or shortlisted, and finalists whose work appears in more than one category are awarded 10 points for each selection as a finalist. Where winners or finalists are a group comprising students from different schools, the schools share the points.

We have attempted to assess the performance of those individual students who reached the highest level of the competition, and therefore the student success reflects the performance of the highest-calibre students being taught by the school. As in many other fields of competitive endeavor, performance is about coaching/teaching as well as about innate talent.

The full 2014 China design school league table of results is available here.

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By Tom Phillips