Car Design Awards China 2013 contest launches

未来，中国设计

Future car designers in China are again being challenged to meet the needs of the future by entering the CDN competition which is dedicated to identifying the most promising talent. The fourth annual Car Design Awards China is now open, and entries are invited from students of any design discipline who are studying full time at a college in China.

They will work to briefs set by the design chiefs of brands including Audi, JAC, Qoros, Volvo Trucks and Volkswagen. A panel of distinguished senior designers whose background is both inside and outside China will judge their entries.

Prizes for the winners will be fully-funded placements at one of the international design schools which are currently being lined up as partners for the competition. An indication of the opportunity this brings for Chinese students, the schools for the 2012 winners were: the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in the US; Coventry University in the UK; Istituto d'Arte Applicata e Design (IAAD) in Italy; Strate College in France; and Umea Institute of Design in Sweden. Their students mixed with classmates from all parts of the world and were exposed to Western design teaching.

As an additional prize this year, a student winner who designs to the Volvo Trucks brief will receive a 3-month placement at the Volvo Group studio in Shanghai, plus a trip to one of the group's international studios. A brief centred on heavy commercial vehicles is a first for the competition this year.

The closing date for submissions is 11 January 2013, by which time all entries must have been uploaded to the competition website. The Awards will culminate in a glittering prize-giving ceremony held on the evening of 18 April 2013, just before the opening of Auto China 2013 (the Shanghai motor show).

All the briefs, together with how to enter, are on the competition website. Also displayed there is the work of all the past winners.

There are nine Awards in the 2013 competition, which will be made for the best entries in: exterior design; interior design; luxury concept; lifestyle design; eco solution; innovation; production model; and virtual design. The judges will select from all the entries to make an award for the best design in harmony with China's heritage.

Brilliance on display

The work of all the finalists will be on display at the Awards ceremony, along with their nervous creators. After the category winners have been announced, just one of them will receive the ultimate accolade of Student Designer of the Year.

"It was so difficult for us to decide on a winner, the entrants were so strong," commented one of the judges, Simon Loasby, Director of Design at VW China, at the concluding judging session of last year's competition. "On one hand we had very creative, out-there designs... and on the other brilliantly-resolved products."

Olivier Boulay, Vice President at Daimler's Advanced Design Center, added: "China is reinventing itself, which gives huge scope to...be creative. It's our job to encourage this direction and let these designers fly a little bit into future."

CDN has created a league table of China's design schools based on the success of their students in the past three competitions. The Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) tops the league, ahead of Tsinghua University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The league rankings use a scoring system based on which students achieve shortlisted, finalist and winner status. The league is intended to track the development of design teaching expertise at China's schools.

In similar vein, the 2013 competition will again acknowledge and publicise the teachers of the winning entries, recognising that raw talent alone is not enough in becoming a professional designer of the future.

To find out more about the Car Design Awards China contest please visit the dedicated Chinese and English websites.

By CDN Team