and Surface Magazine have partnered to establish the Emerging Designer and Emerging Artist Awards, and guess who's been nominated out of five finalists?
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Rhode Island School of Design establishes Emerging Designer and Emerging Artist Awards in partnership with Surface magazine

Ӣ Anticipated cash prize of $25,000 Ӣ Five finalists in design selected Ӣ Winner to be announced in fall 2005

PROVIDENCE, RI - Roger Mandle, president of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Riley John-donnell, co-publisher of Surface magazine, today announced the establishment of an Emerging Designer Award and an Emerging Artist Award. The awards, which carry an anticipated cash prize of $25,000, will alternate each year between designers and artists. In 2005 the award will be given to a designer; next year to an artist. The inaugural award will be presented at RISD's fall Athena Awards Gala in New York, an annual event recognizing significant achievement and leadership in the arts by individuals, corporations, artists, and designers.

“RISD is very pleased to join forces with Surface magazine,” says President Mandle. “Their commitment over the past decade to honoring innovation in design through editorial coverage and awards programs, along with their advocacy for public awareness of design makes Surface an ideal partner in presenting this award.”

Nominations for the Emerging Designer Award were solicited from over 150 leaders in the field of design. Nominees were required to live and work in the United States; have approximately 3-7 years of practice in their field; be recognized by peers, experts, and members of the press; and have an active exhibition, commission, and/or production record. Most urgently, nominees were expected to uphold the Athena values of aesthetic excellence and good citizenship, producing work that is original, innovative, socially relevant, and an inspiration to others. Nominees are not required to be RISD-affiliated. In identifying emerging designers from the greater design community, RISD seeks to advance its core educational principle—that aesthetic excellence is at its best when accompanied by social and environmental consciousness—as a universal value.

The five finalists for the Athena Emerging Designer Award were chosen from thirty nominees in mid-March by a distinguished jury: Barbara Bloemink, curatorial director of the Cooper-Hewitt; Riley John-donnell, publisher of Surface magazine; Jon Kamen, founder and chairman of @radical.media; Carl Magnusson, executive vice-president, director of design for Knoll; Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method Products; and Andy Spade, CEO of Kate Spade.

The five finalists are: Charlie Lazor, co-founder of Blu Dot, founder of Lazor Office, and designer of the FlatPak House; Ji Lee, art director and graphic and product designer; Gerard Minakawa, furniture designer and founder of Ukao Grass Furniture; Cameron Sinclair, founder and director of Architecture for Humanity; and Tobias Wong, whose “paraconceptual” projects blur the line between designer and artist.

“We couldn't be more pleased with the finalists for the Emerging Designer Award,” says President Mandle. “Each represents the very best in design today, in terms of both talent and contributions to design consciousness, whether through humanitarian efforts in the case of Cameron Sinclair, or pushing the edges of design sensibilities as Tobias Wong does so provocatively.”

The winner of the Emerging Designer Award will be announced at the Athena Awards Gala at the Tribeca Rooftop in New York on November 14, 2005.

For more information, to arrange interviews with the finalists, or for images of the finalists' work, contact: Jennifer Liese, Associate Director of External Relations, at jliese@risd.edu or 401.454.6348.


About RISD
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the country. Today, with more than 17,000 alumni, the college enrolls roughly 1,900 undergraduates and 375 graduate students from the United States and almost 50 countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts, architecture, and design disciplines, and art education. Academic programs include research and design initiatives, the exploration of art criticism and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts prominent and accomplished artists, critics, and authors to its campus. Included within the college is The RISD Museum of Art, which houses a world-class collection of art—objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and art of all periods from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, as well as the latest in contemporary art. For more information, go to www.risd.edu