Morpholio Project’s Inside2015 Awards Emerging Designers

This week Morpholio Project named the winners of the Inside2015 design competition, which asked students and young professionals to share no more than three images of their work via the Morpholio Pinup app. Selected by a jury of design editors and industry professionals, SOFTlab was recognized as an Emerging Talent for its CHROMAtex concept and Vishawaraj Nikumbh was honored as a Future Voice for his Organic Pod proposal (see the slideshow for all 14 winners). 

Since entrants were not permitted to include project descriptions or briefs, the contest tested young designers on how and why they harness technology by asking the following questions:

• What are the aspirations by which we evaluate design today?

• In an increasingly networked culture, what makes a project capable of cutting through the virtual noise, and starting a new conversation?

• How do evolving forms of media affect the way in which your message reaches its destination? What is your message?

Inside2015 was assembled by designers, professors and students as a means to publically promote the research, exploration and investigation currently happening in higher education and by emerging talents. “Overall, the submissions represent a mix of scales—urban to object—but across scales,” says David Bright, one of the competition’s jurors and senior vice president of communications at Knoll. “The best projects address complex problems through a direct approach to design,” says Bright.

Another juror, Elizabeth Giorgi of Apartment Therapy, put it this way: “We tend to think of great design as either being captured in history in the past or so brilliantly futuristic that we can’t imagine what it will be. The truth is that the most compelling design work right now merges these ideas. Our shared global history should inform how we design for our future.”

This year’s jury comprised Arlene Hirst of T Magazine, Elizabeth Giorgi of Apartment Therapy, Mark Wilson of Fast Company Design, Caroline Williamson of Design Milk, David Bright of Knoll, Barrie Benson of Barrie Benson Interior Design, Lucy Wang of Inhabitat, Richard Elder of Herman Miller, Meghan Edwards of Interior Design magazine, Grace Ehlers of Metropolis magazine, Brandon Quattrone of Consort Design, Cheryl Durst of IIDA, and Paul Petrunia of ARCHINECT.