The "Third Maier S. Coop. Design Competition", an international competition for the design of vehicle interiors organised by the company Maier S. Coop with the collaboration of Mondragón, the Innovation and Financial Promotion Department of the Bizkaia Regional Government and Eide (the Basque Association of Industrial Designers), has become a major Design Competition, with substantial prize money and extensive media coverage.
The Competition Organising Committee therefore encourages designers, engineers, students, amateurs and professionals alike, to take part in this year's competition, presenting their creative and innovative proposals for vehicle interiors.
The aim of the competition is to award prizes for projects consisting of ideas for new products, focusing on vehicle interiors, more specifically for doors, with innovations affecting their opening and closing lifetime and other uses. These new product ideas should be geared to facilitating user operation, simplifying the currently-existing systems, including new features, improving driver and passenger safety, modernising the appearance of the vehicle interior using new decoration techniques or including environmental improvements.
The proposals are to focus on the following products:
- Inside Door Opening Handle.
- Door Panel Handgrip.
- Speaker Grille.
- Door Panel Embellishers
Eligibility
Any natural person or legal entity may take part in the competition.
For information purposes, persons or companies from the following areas could participate:
- Designers and Design Companies
- Students and Universities
- Public or Private Design Entities
- Research and Development Centres
- Automotive Sector Companies
- Others
Subject
The subject may be freely chosen within the product scope described in point 1 of these rules. By way of a non-limiting example, the proposals may focus on:
- Element inclusion and cost reduction: solutions that integrate elements and are geared towards cost reduction with respect to currently-existing solutions.
- Vehicle interior cleanliness: ideas for products with technical characteristics (materials, decoration) geared towards keeping the area clean.
- Haptics: ideas for products that respond to the user via a sensation (the product responding to touch, sight, smell).
- Ergonomics (user adaptation): ideas for door area products improving driver and passenger ergonomics.
- Appearance and customisation: ideas for technologies integrated to the door that provide new appearance possibilities and vehicle customisation solutions.
- Interior lighting for decoration: ideas for products, materials and coatings where direct or indirect light gives rise to new forms of decoration.
- Safety: technical solutions that detect, warn, prevent or reduce driver and passenger impact in case of accident, improving on currently-existing solutions.
- Environment: ideas for products including environmental concepts.
Participation
Each participant may present between 1 and 5 projects, created either individually or as a team.
The projects are to be sent in digital format to the following e-mail address: [email protected]
The projects are to consist of the following:
1. A maximum of 3 horizontal panels in JPG format with a size of 1280x1024 pixels at 72 dpi resolution, with a maximum file size of 1 Mb per panel, containing sufficient plans, cross-sections or perspective drawings for the proposal to be understood. The panels may not contain any elements (name, initials, signature, etc) identifying the author or authors. Any explanatory comments included on the panels must be in English.
2. A maximum of one page only in DOC format using Arial font size 10 and in one of the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish or Basque, containing the following information:
- Name and surname(s).
- Address.
- Contact telephone number.
- E-mail address.
- Profession (if the participant is a student, indicate studies being undertaken).
- Indicate how you found out about the competition (mailing list, newspapers, website, other).
- Project abstract, stating its aim, functioning, improvement, innovation, etc., to facilitate understanding of the proposal.
Deadline for Entries: The deadline for presentation of projects is 30 April 2009.
The winners will be notified in June 2009 by and e-mail sent to the e-mail address provided by the participant.
First Prize: Award and 6.000 Euros
Second Prize: Award and 3.000 Euros
The possibility of Maier S. Coop. granting a share in the sales is contemplated, in the case of industrial production of the winning projects. (See point 10 of these competition rules).
If the Jury should consider that none of the projects presented suitably fulfils the conditions for receiving an award, one or both of the prizes may be declared void.
The Jury's decision is final.