Season Six of HSE CREATIVE OPEN Competition Begins
Beginner-level specialists and students, as well as graduates of any university, regardless of geographical location, are invited to participate. Works can be submitted in the categories of Identity, Object Design, Illustration and Comics, Game Visuals, and Sound until January 21, 2024. Launched by the HSE Art and Design School in 2022, the competition collected more than 1,500 works in its first year. Its goal is to present a unified platform to host original ideas and spectacular projects in all areas of design, contemporary art, and fashion, as well as to draw the attention of the creative community to the development of professions in the industry.
The jury of each category consists of a curator, a ‘thought leader’, and representatives of various institutions and trend-setting companies, who select relevant projects.
Based on the results, the jury will put together shortlists of notable and interesting projects and decide on the top three. The winners will receive cash prizes, support improving and/or implementing their project, and have their work published on a platform that showcases the best works, forms an online archive of art by talented young people, and discovers new names.
HSE CREATIVE OPEN in numbers
Prizes
🥇 1st place—50,000 roubles.
🥈 2nd place—30,000 roubles.
🥉 3rd place—20,000 roubles.
Applications are accepted up to and including January 21, 2024. Each category has its own curator.
Winners are chosen separately for each category.
Categories of HSE CREATIVE OPEN Season Six
Identity
Today, brand identity is a key stage in interaction with an audience. The ability to think through and implement a holistic concept for visual branding is not just a valuable skill, but an entire area of creative activity that needs competent specialists. We expect participants to present real and fantasy projects that present interesting visual identity concepts for brands and companies.
Visual identity (corporate style) development projects, both made according to real briefs and initiative projects, are accepted for participation in the Identity category. Identity development projects can be carried out for real or imaginary commercial companies, services, consumer brands, cultural and educational institutions, charitable and public organisations, as well as events and festivals.
Reference Works
Object Design
Object designers shape the environment that surrounds us. The objects found in interiors and public spaces create an atmosphere and help us feel better at home and be more efficient at work.
We are looking for works that form a new object environment—bold statements and conceptual findings, technological discoveries and concise objects that will become a functional addition to many interiors/public spaces and improve the user experience.
Reference Works
Game Visuals
Video games are one of the youngest forms of communication, yet one of the most effective. Today’s gamers don’t just play for fun—as technology advances and audience expectations rise, the most important element of gaming communication comes to the forefront: graphics.
The repertoire of modern video games has gone beyond fantasy and genre fiction, and game graphics are needed not only to depict elven princesses and combat robots. The competition does not exclude traditional solutions, but we will be particularly pleased with avant-garde, innovative concepts in which game visuals resonate with digital art, video art, and original design.
Projects that can address the main tasks solved by visual content in the interactive format of a video game are accepted for participation in the Game Visuals category: to make an impression, to indicate the action location, and to show the events taking place in this virtual space as effectively as possible.
Reference Works
Sound
This season, the focus of the competition is on the increased interest in ambient music in recent years. The trend towards this genre can be seen in the global music market very clearly in the works of multiple producers. Rapidly developing technologies provide a colossal variety of instruments and, as a result, saturate modern music with new timbre colours and textures while updating the understanding of long-existing musical genres. The new ambient is no exception—we can clearly discern a trend towards a fusion of smooth, defocused harmonic layers familiar to this genre with technological textures, ASMR / spoken word, and complex spatial processing.
Today, such music exists not only in the format of music releases, but also as soundtracks for a wide range of media products and voiceovers for contemporary art exhibitions, performances, theatrical productions, and fashion shows.
Reference Works
More information, recommendations, and registration links are available in Russian on the HSE Art and Design School website.
See also:
Exhibition by HSE Art and Design School Students Now Open at Fabrika Centre
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‘The Form of a Building Plays a Supportive Role; the Main Thing is Its Content’
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Second Season of ‘Parajanov—100’ Contest Launched at HSE Art and Design School
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HSE Art and Design School Opens First University Concept Store
In December, HSE University launched its first concept store—the HSE ART AND DESIGN STORE (part of the HSE Art and Design School). The new space offers ample opportunities for the successful implementation of design projects and features young and promising brands from students, graduates, and teachers of the HSE University Art and Design School.
HSE Design Lab Receives Diploma from Union of Moscow Architects
The HSE Design Lab was named one of the winners in the Best Interior Solution project category of the Union of Moscow Architects for its project to renovate the interiors of the HSE University building on Maly Tryokhsvyatitelsky Pereulok. The awards were presented at the BUILD SCHOOL exhibition in Moscow, which ended on November 2.
HSE Design Lab Develops New Navigation System for Ice Arena
In early October, the HSE Design Lab presented a new project at the HSE Art and Design School. A team of teachers and students has developed a navigation system for the G-Drive sports arena in Omsk. The ice stadium, which is home to the Omsk hockey club Avangard, opened in 2022 and seats 12,000 spectators.
‘In Search of the Key to the Past’: Students of HSE Art and Design School in Nizhny Novgorod Develop Collection of Souvenirs
The HSE Art and Design School in Nizhny Novgorod, together with the ‘Protected Quarters’ project to revive Nizhny Novgorod’s historical territories, have carried out the ‘Timeless’ creative project, which included a design laboratory and an educational programme. As a result of the creative workshop, students made concepts for souvenir products based on the local identity.
Role of Street Art in Urban Environment Discussed at HSE CREATIVE HUB
On July 22, the HSE CREATIVE HUB space hosted the ‘AGREED’ street art festival. This is the first collaboration between HSE Art and Design School students and the CHAIN community. The event participants learned how street art changes the urban environment and also created their own artifacts in the form of special stickers and stencils.
‘We Live in a World Where Technology and Interaction with It Are an Integral Part of Everyday Life’
In early July, HSE ART GALLERY hosted the grand opening of the ‘Telling Stories. Big Data’ exhibition. The first part of this project has been exhibited at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art since the end of June. The exhibition will be open at both venues until August 13th.