Golden ratio challenges students in design competition

“With the proliferation of similar awards competitions in the past few years, we felt it was time to make a few refreshing changes to what has proved to be a very successful formula for the company's longstanding student awards competition,” says Jason Wells, brand manager of PG Bison.

“We needed to modernize the brand and competition to appeal to the ever-changing makeup of the student market, while maintaining the competition's prestige. The new brand concept is designed to appeal to a specific target market - students of architecture and interior design - while pushing traditional competition boundaries.

“We know students like to be challenged while expressing their creativity in a fast-paced and ever changing world. However, in this frenzied environment, it is important to retain principles and values, which have stood the test of time and will continue to do so in the future. That is why we have chosen 1.sixoneeight as its name. It's a phenomenon that is appealing, admirable - and in many cases - mythically alluring, because it cannot be completely, logically explained.”

2010 theme, brief

The theme for this year's competition, ‘Eat, Sleep, Bath, Cook and Live' has been conceptualised by the competition partner @home, which needs a design for its concept ‘Store of the Future', a look and feel for the next 3-5 years for this upmarket retail space.

Entries need to answer the following questions:

• How do you use your design to excite and engage the customer?
  
• How does your design take the customer on a journey?
  
• How do you entice the customer, through design, to shop when homeware is considered a luxury and not a necessity?

Submission date for entries is 13 August 2010.

Prizes

• First prize is a trip for the winning student, accompanied by the student's lecturer to the 2011 Milan Furniture Fair, valued at R40 000 per person and an @home gift card for homeware and furniture valued at R15 000
  
• Merit Award is an all-expenses paid trip to the 2011 Design Indaba in Cape Town, valued at R12 000, and an @home gift card for homeware and furniture valued at R8000
  
• Third prize is R7000 cash and an @home gift card for homeware and furniture valued at R6000
  
• Seven non-winning finalists will receive an @home gift card for homeware and furniture valued at R3000.

In addition to these prizes, should @home use any element of any competition submission in the future design of any store, or in any other aspect of the business, the student/s concerned will each receive an @home gift card for Homeware and Furniture valued at R2000.

Download an entry form from www.1sixoneeight.co.za