A' Design Awards & Competition - Call for Entries

Have you entered the A' Design Award and Competition yet? Nominate your design here. The deadline for entries is fast approaching and now is the time to submit your best work. With over 100 categories the A' Design Award and Competition is the worlds' largest design competition. But it is not just an award. It is an indicator of quality and perfection in design, recognized worldwide, bringing your design front and centre before design companies and professionals.

From the Good Industrial Design Award to the Good Architecture Design Award. The Good Product Design Award to the Good Communication Design Award. The Good Service Design Award to the Good Fashion Design Award and so many more. (You can find all the design categories here.) With the competition highlighting, advertising & advocating good design, taking part will provide recognition, publicity and international peer review.

Entries will be judged by an international jury panel of scholars, professionals and media members. Unlike other awards the competition follows a peer-review process with anonymous voting and evaluation of all entries. And the benefits to the winners are inspiring! The trophy, of course, an invitation to the gala night, a certificate of quality, inclusion in the prestigious A' Design Award and Competition exhibition and the yearly ResultBook but even more importantly press, PR, introduction to industry professionals and companies and international exposure. The fame, the prestige, the recognition and so much more.

You can find out more about the A' Design Award and Competition here and register here. But hurry as the deadline for submissions is February 28. Results will be announced here on the blog (and worldwide) on April 15.

To get you inspired to enter here are some past winners!

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Let there be light

Nicole Hollis

I have a "thing" for lighting. Table lamps and floor lamps, wall washers and pendants. Layer upon layer of ambiant lighting. I think it's like adding jewellery to an outfit. Little sparkles and highlights. Time for a little lighting eye candy, in particular pendants.

Damien Langlois-Meurinne

AD France

Joy Tribout

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World Design Rankings

News flash! The World Design Rankings have been announced for 2016. Who do you think topped the list? Where did your country come? What are World Design Rankings? WDR ranks all the countries based on the number of designers that have been granted with the A' Design Award. United States ranked as number 1 among the 88 represented countries, followed by Italy, England, Japan, Brazil, China, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong and Turkey which took the top positions this past year. So where did your country came? Check out the list below:

(As you can see Canada pipped Australia by 2 places. Come on Aussie designers time to pick up your game. Next year we have to bet those Canadians!)

The ultimate aim of the World Design Rankings is to contribute to global design culture through advocating and highlighting good design. The rankings provide a snapshot of the state-of-art and design potentials of countries worldwide by highlighting their creative strengths, design weaknesses and available opportunities. The "Design Business Insights" section provides a ranking of countries based on their success in diverse design fields and creative categories. Using the "Design Business Insights" section, media members and design lovers could discover leading countries for specific design sectors and get answers to their questions such as "Which country is best in industrial design", "Which country is best in interior design?",  "Which country is the best in fashion design?" etc.

With the best of the best showcased in hundreds of design fields and categories the Design Classifications allow you to choose the top ranking designers, artists and architects for your next project be it in architecture, interior design, furniture design, fashion design, graphics design and packaging design and more.

This is the second year that Desire to Inspire has partnered with the A' Design Award & Competition, the world's largest annual juried design competition that honors the best designers, architects, and design oriented companies worldwide to provide them publicity, fame and recognition. Such an exciting competition. Such a prestigious award. Here are some of my favourite winners from previous years.

Malibu Apartment Remodeling by Fernanda Marques

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Georg Jensen - You can never be too much you

I have been an admirer of Georg Jensen's work for a long time and this Danish design house's new global campaign is something I can really stand behind. Being a woman in the IT field and having been 1 of only a handful of females in the computer science program I took in college, this campaign resonates with me. And now I love Georg Jensen even more. #IamNeverTooMuch

Danish design house Georg Jensen has replaced models with role models in a new global campaign aimed at encouraging women of the world to be themselves and to make their own success. The message of the campaign is clear:

You can never be too much you

"At Georg Jensen we’ve always encouraged women to be themselves and make their own success - our campaign is the extension of that very philosophy and the women featured are the embodiment of that", says Georg Jensen CEO Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt, who herself was appointed the first female CEO of Georg Jensen earlier in 2016 and today leads the senior management team, where 50% of the members are female.
Georg Jensen’s campaign entitled You can never be too much you - which spans online and offline media worldwide - features award-winning film director Susanne Bier (Denmark), WBA, WBC and WBO world champion welterweight boxer Cecilia Brækhus (Norway), award winning comedian Sarah Kendall (Australia), professional motocross rider Behnaz Shafiei (Iran) and Dominique Crenn - the world’s best chef (USA). All women who have defied conventions and risen to the tops of their industries:
"Georg Jensen is for women all over the world who embrace their voices and create their own path - and don’t let anyone else define them. We wanted this campaign to transcend ideals about beauty, putting focus on personality first. The women featured are powerful role models, and we’re very proud to be featuring them in the campaign", says Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt.

Save and track your favourite home decor items with Shoptagr

Have you heard about Shoptagr.com, the fabulous free service that lets you save items from your favourite online shopping sites to one place then notifies when they go on sale (including coupon codes) or when an item comes back in stock. You really must download the free apps for your computer and mobile phone. Thousands of savvy shoppers are already browsing their favourite sites and using Shoptagr to help them bag a bargain. It's easy. When you see an item you like, click the Shoptagr icon from your bookmarks bar and confirm details like size, colour and desired discount level.

 

It's fabulous for compiling fashion wish lists but it's just as great for keeping track of all those home decor pieces you really, really want but would really, really like to buy for less. We all love a bargain and Shoptagr gives you the edge. Tagged items are arranged in a clean, Pinterest-style page where you can organize products into collections. I'm hunting for bargains for a glam makeover of my living room and to drag my embarrassingly dull guest room from drab to fab.

It only takes a second to install on your browser and is SO easy to use. Can you imagine how great this is going to be for managing and organizing your Holidays wish list? OMG think how cool this will be for Black Friday/Cyber Monday! Sales are always limited by time/stock - with Shoptagr you will be the FIRST to see those sales (immediate/live notifications) before your item goes out of stock. AND you can share items with your friends and family.

Iphone and Android apps have just been released, so you can save items to your watch list on the go while window-shopping. Shoptagr's retail partners include Crate&Barrel, Ikea, Houzz, One Kings Lane, West Elm, Terrain and so many mores—and the list continues to grow—making it an all-encompassing tool for any online shopper. The best part? Thanks to Shoptagr.com savvy shoppers can now spend less time obsessively stalking bargains and more time doing the fun part— finding new items to covet.

This post is in collaboration with Shoptagr.