Estonian Design Awards 2022

The Estonian Design Awards is a biannual competition, which recognizes the use of good design, brings the trends of the field to the public and draws attention to the various possibilities of applying design and the value that can be derived from it. The design awards are part of the Design Night festival, with this year’s theme 'Green Design WTF?', or 'Way to the Future'.

Having been awarded the title of Designer(s) of the Year at the previous awards, it was our task to create the visual identity of this year’s event.

We started the process by looking for a technical solution for the awards. Inspired by the theme of the circular economy, the idea arose to make the awards from recycled materials, which led to a cooperation with the recycled plastic solutions offering project – Precious Plastics Estonia.

The A4 size of the award was the largest format that PP had tried to produce so far. Melting this size evenly and ensuring quality was more difficult than expected, but several trials resulted in a solution that worked. Part of the charm of the final product is the unique pattern of each piece and the sometimes wavy edges that exhibit the very manual and experimental work that went into them. With the production of one diploma, around 100 bottle caps were given a new life. Uniqueness is further added, for example, by a golden cap placed inside the winning award, on which the text "The color of victory is gold" can be seen.

The exciting colorful shapes created by the technical solution of the award were also the inspiration for the event's visual identity – the colors playfully merge on the screens in the same way as plastic does between a hot press.

A modular exhibition of nominated and winning works traveling around Estonia is also part of the event. Since the exhibition is bilingual and information rich, the main work went into creating a clear and easy-to-follow structure. The end result is a striking and easy-to-read exhibition, which, in cooperation with the structures of interior architect Tõnu Kalpus, has a fresh and dignified effect in different locations.