HUBLOT DESIGN PRIZE HITS NEW HEIGHTS

Continuing its support of young designers, Hublot this year celebrates the seventh, and biggest, edition of the annual Hublot Design Prize.

Hublot welcomed eight talented young designers to the Serpentine Gallery as they announced the winner of this year’s coveted Hublot Design Prize. The drive to support up-and-coming designers is now in its seventh year and has seen the highest-calibre entries from across the world. The winner will receive 100,000 Swiss francs prize money and join an illustrious list of previous award recipients including Samuel Ross, the British artist who went on to design a watch for Hublot, and last year’s winner, New York-based illustrator Mohammed Iman Fayaz.

The Hublot Design Prize was inaugurated in 2015 to mark the tenth anniversary of the iconic Big Bang watch and has since become a major event on the design industry calendar. It was the brainchild of Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe and the late graphic artist designer Pierre Keller, who was credited with turning the Lausanne University of Art & Design into one of the most influential design schools in the world.

Hublot has a history of exploring the boundaries of design and this year’s finalists have been chosen from a whole range of disciplines. The Design Prize allows them to showcase their work to a wider audience and by shining light on the talents of these already accomplished designers, Hublot hopes to help take their careers to the next level.

The finalists were selected by an independent jury, chosen from different fields of contemporary design, who are then presenting them to the judging panel: Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries; Marva Griffin, the founder of the design fair SaloneSatellite; the design critic and author Alice Rawsthorn; and Samuel Ross, who won the award in 2019.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello was announced as the winner during a reception at the gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens on 31st October 2022 during which finalists’ work was on display.

This year’s eight finalists were:

• Connor Cook. A Netherlands-based designer from California who has developed a practice of computational performance, transforming the technical operations of computer game engines into live, interactive audio-visual experiences.

• Maya Bird-Murphy. A designer, educator, founder and executive director of Chicago Mobile Makers, an award-winning nonprofit organisation bringing design and skill-building workshops to underrepresented communities in the hope of helping to make the world a more equitable place to live.

• Hiroto Yoshizoe. A designer that has a strong background in spatial design. With experience working at Japan’s largest architectural design company, he has been involved in over 300 projects for urban development and commercial spaces. His innovative designs are inspired by primitive elements and natural phenomena.

• Kusheda Mensah. A Ghanaian artist and designer born and raised in Peckham, London. Her debut collection Mutual at Salone Satellite 21 encouraged social interaction in the age of social media. She creates responsive and reactive design through her studio Modular by Mensah.

• Nifemi Marcus-Bello. A Nigeria-based industrial designer known for his community-led, ethnographic-conscious design approach that pursues new forms and typologies. In 2017, he founded his eponymous design studio focusing on furniture, product and installation design.

• Luigi Alberto Cippini. An architect and a curator who founded the European architecture practice Armature Globale. As a curator, he has developed research shows and screening programmes such as BE5K Confinement at the Fondazione Prada in 2016 and Sturm&Drang at the Fondazione Prada Osservatorio in 2021.

• Sasha Anisimova. An illustrator from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Before the war, she was working as a graphic designer and illustrator, often creating happy wedding scenes. Now she has to imagine these scenes, drawing outlines of happy families against the background of devastation caused by the war.

• Sun Xiaoxi. A graphic designer from Beijing who co-founded design studio PAY2PLAY. From magazines to packaging, from exhibitions to art projects, his works integrate traditional Chinese typography with contemporary designs that experiment with new materials and forms.