Empowered by Design & Updating Everything ｜ The Trophy Design of the Design Impression · Qingdao Design Festival 2022
The "Design Impression · Qingdao Design Festival 2022", organized by Tsinghua (Qingdao) Academy of Arts and Science Innovation Research, was inaugurated on November 29, 2022. This design festival is sponsored by the Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, organized by Qingdao Daily Press Group and Tsinghua (Qingdao) Academy of Arts and Science Innovation Research, and supported by Qingdao West Coast New Area Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Qingdao West Coast New Area Talent Recruitment Center (University-City Integration Office), and the Development and Construction Headquarters of Qingdao Lingshan Bay Film and Television Cultural Industrial Zone. In the trend of fully promoting the development of the industry empowered by design, and under the theme of "Empowered by Design & Updating Everything", this design festival aims to provide vitality of innovation and power of design to the quality development of Qingdao by driving industrial upgrade through design with the support of innovation, and to revitalize and empower the city, serve people's livelihood and fully unleash the Academy's potential for innovation on design.
Tsinghua (Qingdao) Academy of Arts and Science Innovation Research has planned and conducted the festival, and set six sections including "design competition", "design exhibition", "award ceremony", "academic exchange", "online voting" and "media's exploration" and over ten activities. This event will build up an efficient platform for exchange and cooperation in the fields of design, industry and academy, promote the innovative development of the new liberal arts across disciplines and fields, improve the overall aesthetic accomplishment of the public and make active contributions to the national economy and the people's livelihood by means of research results of art design disciplines.
There are 65 awards in the design competition, including 5 gold awards, 10 silver awards, 20 bronze awards, and 30 excellence awards. Winners of the gold, silver, and bronze awards will be granted the trophy of the Design Impression · Qingdao Design Festival 2022 by the organizing committee.
Inspired by chipped stone tools from the Paleolithic Age, the trophy of the Design Impression · Qingdao Design Festival 2022 was designed and made by the team from the Academy. Chipped stone tools are the stone pieces or cores that the primitive human got from hard stones by using other stones. The emergence of chipped stone tools had great importance to human evolution and development, though it seems rough and heavy.
Design is a creative activity, and it has been subsequently integrated into the whole process of human history since humans began to make stone tools. The idea of the overall shape of the trophy comes from the multilateral chipped stone tools of the Paleolithic age. After geometrically simplifying, the stable stereo-hexagonal trophy was born. It is simple but dignified and is able to stand erect on the ground.
In terms of craftsmanship, the process of crystal inner carving is adopted. The laser-engraving sculpture in the middle part of the trophy, called "May Wind", is the symbol of Qingdao. The designer refined the overall shape of the sculpture and abstracted the outline, making it coordinated with the trophy in normal size, and the varied simple and flexible outline also features the casual and imagination of the design.
In terms of details, to ensure overall ingenuity and to make all notch flat and glossy, all trophies are polished repeatedly after the crystal cutting. The text on the trophy is designed and composed in strict accordance with the size of the drawing. The text on the gold, silver, and bronze awards is further distinguished by different colors, including gold, silver and bronze. With an overall height of about 25 cm and a width of about 4 cm, the trophy is easy to hold. In addition, the crystal material brings about a sense of weight.
The designer also focused on the diversity and flexibility of trophy design. As the gold, silver and bronze awards are shaped differently, it shows that design is not a routine activity, but a flexible task in accordance with different conditions. The volume of the trophy decreases from gold to bronze, increasing the degree of differentiation from the most intuitive visual level. Besides, the three colors, gold, silver and bronze, are attached to the small marginal notch of the three trophies respectively, for it could enrich the overall image of the trophy by adding more elements while also featuring the flash of the genius of the design. Three "stone tools" of different sizes and shapes also present the designer's ever-changing design inspiration. As the theme of the competition goes, "Design Makes Life Better", the competition of the Design Impression · Qingdao Design Festival 2022 is the joint efforts of numerous designers, which proposed that design brings genuine convenience and happiness to all people.
Through thousands of years of development and reformation, design is still enduring and sparkling. Winners' holding of the trophy represents that human is naturally curious about and keen on design, and meanwhile, the design festival keeps bursting out the light of the design.
Members of the trophy design group
LUO Xin, FENG Bin, LI Xiaokun, WANG Shengyi
