Young Balkan Designers 2022

Young Balkan Designers 2022 now is over!

Young Balkan Designers 2022: The Young Balkan Designers (YBD), organized by Mikser Association has been recently opend for entries in its 2022 edition, calling for design projects − products, concepts, services and scenarios that are bringing human touch back into design process and manufacturing.

Short description

Mikser organization from Belgrad recently has announced it Young Balkan Designers 2022 inviting all creatives from Balkan region to participate.

Young Balkan Designers (YBD) is a regional talent platform founded in 2011 with the aim to identify, promote and develop creative potential of the Balkan region in the field of design. The initiative also aims at unifying the regional design scene, bringing it closer to the international audience, strengthening its potential by providing additional education and practice, while at the same time contributing to the restoration of multi-cultural cooperation in the Balkan region. Young Balkan Designers theme for 2022 is “Life Hacks for Health & Wellbeing” and calls for design projects, objects, concepts, services, scenarios and inventions which create a “shortcut” between sustainable living and wellbeing, provoking conversation on alternative and “outside of the box” approach to designing and re-imagining healthier everyday worlds: at home, at school or work, in public, in our intimate and community spaces, urban and rural environments, in our physical and digital realms.

The proposed projects should not necessarily have the ambition to “leave a mark” but, instead attempt to minimize their carbon footprint and embody thoughts on circularity of the materials used, implementation of local skills and resources, involvement of local actors in problem-solving and production, creating a positive environmental, economic, cultural and social impact.

Submission requirements:

If selected for the YBD 2022 selection, submitted entries in the category of products must be executed as functional prototypes, while concepts and scenarios must be adequately presented through other media (installation, live action, video, animation, storyboard, etc).

Evaluation Criteria:

➜ socially engaging and innovative features of the project that enhance the quality of everyday life;
➜ innovativeness in addressing needs of different social groups;
effectiveness in addressing user’s personal health and wellbeing
potentials for circularity of product or its elements;
➜ ergonomics
➜ rational production and transportation costs
➜ innovative use of materials available locally;
➜ implementation of local knowledge and techniques
environmentally friendly production process, innovative use of ➜ recycled materials
➜ relevancy in relation to local / global environmental and social issues;
➜ significant social impact on local community

Winners of the Young Balkan Designers 2022 competition will be announced on 28 January, 2022.

Who may enter?

The competition is open to all persons up to 35 years of age, from the following countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and Turkey. Applicants may be individuals or groups of creators. Each applicant may submit more than one entry.