Budapest Design Week launched on big anniversary Hungarian Design Awards and Design Management Award announced
Budapest Design Week celebrates a special anniversary this year. Open from 5 to 15 October, the celebratory 20th festival evokes the outstanding objects, events and moments of the past two decades across the Hungarian design scene. By tradition, the event was opened with a festive award ceremony of the Hungarian Design Award and the Design Management Award on 5 October in the Museum of Ethnography. This year, the Design Management Award was granted to a company manufacturing medical diagnostic products. Winners of the Hungarian Design Award include a lamp collection, a rack and pinion railway vehicle concept, a home workout bench and a smart buoy.
The award, which is open to innovative entries from designers, manufacturers, dealers, distributors and clients, was conferred this year for the 44th time. Similarly to previous years, the accolades were awarded in the categories of products, concepts, visual communication, and students. Special prizes in the competition were offered by the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO), the State Secretariat for Innovation and Higher Education of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (KIM), the Hungarian Design Council and, for the first time this year, a special mentorship prize offered by Árkossy Bútor Ltd.
The Hungarian Design Award in the product category was granted to BOO Studio comprising creators Eszter Lebó and Ildikó Kele who manufacture Merino wool knitwear for children and adults. An award in the same category went to the Repeta collection, joint work by Sára Kele and Anna Cserba, which was created by reusing materials classified as waste, such as construction debris or even nut shells. HIPO gave its special prize to the RatiNook car trunk stabilizers dreamt up by the founders of Flying Objects design studio, Ferenc Laufer and András Húnfalvi.
The winner in the concept category of the Hungarian Design Award was FOGAS VISION 360° by Ádám Molnár, who developed a new rack and pinion railway vehicle concept for Budapest. In the same category, a special prize was awarded to the HUPLE medical movement therapy device and method developed on the basis of Dr. Judit Schultheisz’s concept in cooperation with the team of Co&Co Designcommunication – Gergely Hosszú, Tamás Cosovan, Richárd Nagy, Márton Budai and Balázs Buhala –, which primarily serves the diagnosis, treatment and development of prematurely-born neurologically disabled and physically challenged children with non-standard paths of development.
The new visual identity of the Museum of Ethnography won the Hungarian Design Award in the visual communication category; it is, again, the result of a team effort by Hunor Kátay, Sebestyén Németh, Szilárd Kovács, Enikő Déri and Nóra Demeczky, who invested months’ worth of intensive workshop sessions with the institution’s staff as part of a unique process of design. Effectively representing the vast cultural treasury housed by the museum, the visual identity alone is capable of identifying the institution even without a textual reference, and its graphic elements efficiently and clearly refer to the dialogue between cultures and generations, in addition to the symbiosis with the present era.
The special prize of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation was awarded to an experimental volume of studies, Ferry, published by 21st Laboratory and designed by Dóra Balla.
In the student category of the Hungarian Design Award, an entry called A/O lamp collection by Blanka Timári, a student at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design won. The other work recognised in the same category was The Language of Flowers – Folk art as transgenerational heritage, by Zsófia Papp.
The special prize offered by the State Secretariat for Innovation and Higher Education of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation was shared between NIMUE – a water quality monitoring smart buoy created by Liza Feil, a student at Budapest Metropolitan University, and PUPIL eye examination device by Balázs Rovó, a student at Széchenyi István University.
An entry called At least – home workout bench submitted by students at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Nóra Szilágyi, Róbert Kristóffy and Máté Guthy earned them a special mentorship prize offered by Árkossy Bútor Kft.
The Design Management Award has been conferred by the Hungarian Design Council for the 15th time since its foundation in 2009, each year to recognise an enterprise that effectively incorporates design management in its operating model. Previously, the award was granted to well-known and prominent organisations such as the Radnóti Theatre, Hamerli/1861 Glove Manufactory Pécs, Cserpes Cheese Manufactory, Julius-K9, and Panyolium. In 2023, the selected awardee was 77 Electronics Ltd, a developer, manufacturer and distributor of leading medical devices.
The special prize awarded by the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office under the Design Management Award was conferred to Minusplus General Planning Ltd as an architecture and design firm that applies innovative and sustainable solutions, on the one hand, and to the manufacturer of halQ acoustic panels, Image Service Ltd, on the other hand. The special prize offered by Herend Porcelain Manufactory was awarded to Vitéz Kürtős – Földijó Gastro Ltd; their business and product prove that design-thinking works on all levels, in all sizes and across all segments.
A certificate of merit was awarded to hosszúlépés.járunk? (Urban Walks company) for using the toolkit of design management to increase the visibility of their business among their competitors and foster the user-centred approach of their services.
The featured programmes of Budapest Design Week include a series of presentations entitled See into the Future! (at 4 p.m. on 10 October) addressing the distant future and the role of designers in it, as well as a presentation series and a roundtable discussion entitled We are in the Future! (at 4 p.m. on 11 October), in which designers and companies present the changing role of design and designers in the future. The festival dedicates the whole of Thursday to the future of businesses operating in the creative industries: starting at noon, the call for entries, the mentorship programmes and other opportunities available to the creative industries will be presented at the event JövőLÉT (FutureEXISTENCE), while from 3 p.m., the series of presentation entitled JövőKÉP (FutureVISION) will focus also on skills development apropos the European Year of Skills announced by the European Union for 2023. Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Start Up Guide LIVE event will wrap up the day dedicated to enterprise development under the title Designpályán20 (On_a_Design_Path20), where a number of successful design businesses will share their experiences gained during the past twenty years.
Beyond Budapest Design Week’s own programmes, the festival partners will add colours to the colour palette with their 120 programmes in Budapest and in the partner cities. This year Szeged has joined the festival as a new entrant, on top of Pécs and Szombathely. A list of programmes and venues in Budapest is available in the publication Budapest Design Map.
An exhibition showcasing the entries recognised with the Hungarian Design Award and the Design Management Award is available for the audience between 6 and 15 October during the opening hours of the Museum of Ethnography. The achievements and memories from the twenty-year history of the festival are highlighted in the form of a special installation at the central venue of BDW20.
For more details, please visit https://budapestdesignweek.hu/
