CDN and GM launch new interactive competition for students in North America

Car Design News is pleased to announce the launch of this year's Car Design News-GM interactive design competition, a collaboration with GM and our partners, Alcantara, CGT, Pace and SRG Global. GM is offering five students a paid internship (with housing included) at its studios in Warren, Michigan. 
One winner will be picked from each brand (Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC) 
and one additional overall winner will also be chosen by the judges.

The competition is open to students enrolled as a full-time student in college or university in the USA or Canada, and as well as students of transportation and product design, entries from students studying fashion, textile, design engineering, architecture and other design courses are encouraged to participate.

Like last year's competition, this is an open, online contest that lets visitors to the site view the submissions and interact with them, offering their opinions and having the possibility to ‘like' and ‘follow' participants. Mentors are also available to support all of the participants in their entries and impart their knowledge throughout the competition. This year's mentors include designers from our competition partners

Here's a brief summary of the competition, go to the 2012 CDN-GM Interactive Competition website for full details.

Choose your brief
GM's four brands – Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac – have each set a brief that requires entrants to submit two different designs to fit their chosen brief – an exterior design and an interior design. There is no limit to how many submissions can be made by one person, but each must have a design for the exterior and interior. Each brand has provided a detailed outline of what they want to see from their submissions.

Register
When submitting a design or commenting on the work of others entrants must complete a simple online registration, although all uploaded material can be viewed by anyone visiting the site.

Timeframe
Phase one of the competition is now open, with entries due to be submitted by 2 September. Finalists are announced in mid-September, which coincides with the launch of the second phase, in which the finalists will compete against each other. The deadline for the phase two is in early December, when all finalists are invited to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in January 2013 for a public display of their work and the announcement of the winners.

Judges
This year's judges are: Dave Lyon, Executive Director of Interior Design at GM North America, Owen Ready, Editor of Car Design News, Lilana Nicoghosian, Design Manager at CGT, Patrick Ayoub, Creative Director at SRG Global and Sara DeTullio, Chief Designer of Alcantara's Trend and Design department.

Winners and Prizes
All of the chosen finalists announced in early December will be invited to next January's 2013 NAIAS, Detroit, and will be able to see their work on display to the design world on the GM stand. The winning student of each brand's brief will be announced, with these students being invited to work as paid interns at GM's studios in Warren, Michigan.

Submitting an entry
 into the social community
As soon as work is uploaded to the competition's website, judges, mentors, designers and other students who register will be able to comment and provide feedback, and as more and more material is submitted older uploads are archived to provide proof of the evolution of the design as a result of feedback. 

Judges will be looking out for this, so it is encouraged to begin submitting work as soon as possible. Changes to the design as a result of any kind of feedback should be documented and explained as to how and why the design evolved.

And finally...
...all of us at CDN, GM design and the teams at Alcantara, CGT, Pace and SRG Global wish you the best of luck in your efforts, and again encourage you to start uploading your ideas straight away.

By CDN Team