European Design Festival 2022

The European Design Awards started in 2007 with a mission to celebrate European design, facilitate designers to meet, be inspired, and build networks, but also help promote the design discipline to wider audiences. The Awards have been hosted in cities like Stockholm, Zurich, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Istanbul, Vienna, Porto, and Oslo to name a few. After taking place for two years in the virtual sphere, Tallinn was chosen as the city to welcome the European Design Festival, consisting of exhibitions, talks, design walks, workshops, conferences, social events, and of course the European Design Awards gala, in June 2022.

Traditionally the annual designs for the awards are made by a studio located in the host country. The Estonian Design Center proposed local studios for the competition and after getting to know the designers and their work, the awards team chose us to create this year's solution.

The key word we were given for a solution was "creativity". We generated various ideas, keeping in mind the desire for the final visual to speak to a wide audience. The central symbol of the awards is the asterisk, or the "little star". Looking for ways to highlight and draw attention to creativity and unite designers from different countries, we decided to emphasize the star symbol.

With the form as a constant, we started to play with space and material by doing various 3D experiments. The final identity is memorable, with a specific color combination and composition, where the variable is an eye-catching asterisk made of different materials.

We received a lot of positive feedback from design critics and designers alike. The festival organizer stated that the solution was one of the strongest in the award's history.

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More than 1,400 entries from 34 different countries were submitted to the ED-Awards 2022 design competition. A record of 50 works was received from Estonia, of which two were awarded silver and three bronze awards. The festival brought together more than 100 top designers from around the world, who, in addition to receiving awards, also participated in the "Beyond Design" conference. The conference addresses key issues such as the future of design and the design profession, design solutions in today's world, and the future of multidisciplinarity.

The main speakers were designer, sociologist, and sustainability provocateur Leyla Acaroglu, futurist Angela Oguntala (from design studio Greyspace), professor, design and technology ethicist Ariel Guersenzvaig, creative strategist and problem solver Marksteen Adamson, and many others. The conference was chaired by Martin Veisman from our own studio.

Video created by Mellow.