Katja Kandora, a student, has won second place in the ‘Competition for Young Designers’, from among 299 entries submitted by 22 universities.
Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, 13 July 2015: This year’s ‘Competition for Young Designers’ is all about giving Indonesia, the ‘Guest of Honour’ at the Frankfurt Book Fair, a unique welcome. A young woman engrossed in reading a book whose cover is adorned with an Indonesian mask; a man reading whilst relaxing with his feet dangling in the water – these and many other poster designs were submitted to the ‘Competition for Young Designers’ by students from all over Germany. The jury has now selected the ten best designs, which will be on display in an exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt until 16 July 2015.
Katja Kandora, a student on the ‘Information and Communication Design’ programme at the Faculty of Communication and Environment at Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, was awarded second place – worth 1,000 euros – for her poster ‘Sketching Indonesia’. The jury highlighted the following particularly positive aspect of the poster: “The drawing on this poster is dotted with small sketches that evoke childhood memories.” The student’s poster was created as part of a module on the “Information and Communication Design” programme under the supervision of Professor Christoph Zielke, Professor of Media Design at Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
The Frankfurt Book Fair has been organising the competition in cooperation with the City of Frankfurt since 2006. The aim is to extend a warm welcome to the Book Fair’s Guest of Honour – who changes every year – with a poster that is as original as possible. This year, the competition – which until 2014 was open exclusively to four universities in the Rhine-Main region – was extended to the whole of Germany for the first time. “The level of interest was huge, which delighted us, as it shows that it was exactly the right time to open up the competition,” says Markus Gogolin, Head of Marketing and Communications for Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the Frankfurt Book Fair and a member of the jury.
A total of 22 universities submitted their designs. The jury – comprising representatives from the Frankfurt Book Fair, the organising committee for the 2015 Guest of Honour Indonesia, the Museum of Applied Arts, the City of Frankfurt’s Cultural Office and the German Designer Club – had 299 designs to review. “Reviewing so many designs was a major challenge, but one that we as a jury were happy to take on, especially as the result was truly excellent,” says the jury. “What the three winning designs have in common is that they touch the viewer on a personal level.”
The three winners will receive prize money. The ten best designs in total are also available as postcards.
The three winners and their designs:
1st place (€1,500 in prize money): ‘The Reader’
by Stefanie Benz, Johanna Dahlem, Niat Hadgu and Juliane Zieher (Mannheim University of Applied Sciences)
The jury’s reasoning: “The reader behind the mask is shown in the very private moment of reading and is literally engrossed in the book’s contents.”
2nd place (€1,000 prize money): “Sketches of Indonesia”
by Katja Kandora (Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences)
Jury’s statement: “The drawing on this poster is dotted with small sketches that evoke childhood memories.”
3rd place (€500 prize money): ‘Typographic Islands’
by Anna Jansen (Hamburg University of Applied Sciences)
The jury’s reasoning: “This poster reflects the colourful life on the streets of Indonesia and inspires the viewer to embark on a journey to the land of 17,000 islands.”
