The international Best in Design competition provides young designers with the opportunity to present themselves to the world and showcase their talent. The best will receive feedback, valuable contacts, media support, and a financial reward to help kickstart their future projects. So, who has a chance to take home the Best in Design 2025 title this year? Let’s meet the finalists of this year’s competition across all four categories: Product & Industrial Design, Communication Design, Fashion Design, and Service Design.
The winners and final rankings will be announced on May 10, 2025, during the official awards ceremony.
Product & Industrial Design
This category includes product design, interior and furniture design, tool and equipment design, and more.
Judges for Product & Industrial Design: Marek Kuźmiński, Büro Famos, Lukáš Novák
Agnieszka Bujas
Project: Home Care for The Newborn and Mother During the Postpartum Period
Home Care for The Newborn and Mother During the Postpartum Period presents a mobile midwife’s workstation, including a specialized bag and a baby scale for easy transport. The project also features an app to help schedule appointments, monitor the baby’s health, and support the parents’ mental well-being. This solution improves the efficiency of midwives while providing parents with reliable access to information about home visits and their newborn’s health.
Tímea Kepová
Project: UP AND DOWN Collection
The Up and Down collection addresses the concept of seating for relaxation. This object ensures that each seating experience is unique. It supports both sitting or lying on the floor and traditional seating at a chair’s height. The objects remain slightly unstable, encouraging flexibility. The seating’s legs are filled with lightweight, loose material that provides stable support when sitting. However, once spread out, they turn into soft cushions suitable for various sitting and lying positions.
Ivo Jedlička
Project: Cooking the Craft
In the Cooking the Craft project, the author explores the processes of ingredient preparation in gastronomy, examining their properties, structures, and forms. The research includes material and technological studies that bridge two distinct disciplines—design and craftsmanship. The project includes six designs of utensils: Crispy Breading, a plate covered with breadcrumb-like clay, Baked Slice of Layered Porcelain, inspired by laminated dough preparation, VIP Ice Cup, referencing ice and presenting glass as a liquid solidified in space like ice, Pulled Shard of Wonder, which simulates glassmakers stretching like sugar in candy-making, and Twisted Tortilla with a Surprise or (Un)flamed Crème Brûlée.
Communication Design
This category includes graphic design and illustration, new media, visual communication and intermedia, web animations, and more.
Judges for Communication Design: Dan Zucco, Barbora Kramná, Michael Dolejš
Dalibor Itze
Project: Slovak Railways Redesign
The Slovak Railways redesign is part of Dalibor’s bachelor thesis and addresses the comprehensive redesign of the Slovak Railways’ exterior coatings and navigation systems. It addresses long-standing issues such as poor orientation, inconsistent designs, and non-functional visual language. The result is work that simplifies the user experience of traveling by train, helping passengers find the correct carriage, proper seating, and organize information into cohesive units, also aiding visually impaired passengers to locate key elements like doors and railings.
Ina Dubava
Project: Digital Garden of Endangered Plant Species in the Czech Republic
In this project, which was also her thesis, Ina focuses on exploring creative coding and its application in graphic design. The project resulted in motion posters about endangered plants in the Czech Republic, creating a digital garden for vanishing species. Creative coding merges programming with artistic creation, allowing the development of interactive visual and sound elements through algorithms (each poster is created using code, without After Effects). The program code represents a living organism, preserving plants in a virtual environment. These digital technologies offer an alternative way to preserve endangered plants, at least virtually. The motion posters raise awareness about plant extinction and aim to preserve them in case of extinction.
Michaela Zdeňková
Project: Fight FGM/C Together
The project focuses on the fight against female genital mutilation. The goal is to highlight and shed light on this urgent issue through an informational website that summarizes the topic. An effective way for anyone worldwide to contribute to eliminating this harmful practice is by raising awareness about the issue and donating to organizations fighting against it. The project also features merchandise, with proceeds going to selected charities.
Fashion Design
This category includes fashion design, textile design, shoe and leather goods design, jewelry design, and more.
Judges for Fashion Design: Branco Popovic, Katarína Mydliarová, Rafał Zakrzewski
Andrey Chidgey
Project: NO DRESSPASSING!
This project is aimed at children and attempts to present the potential dangers they face in the outside world. The collection, based on elements of a boarding school, such as school uniforms, is complemented by materials and textures like denim, faux fur, and wool, creating a strong wall against any external, potential dangers or sinister, threatening situations to protect them. It suggests creating a double skin between them and others, providing a buffer to preserve the safety of their childhood.
Daria Dembicka
Project: Sweet Decadence
The project is the result of a search for prop forms that would smoothly shift between footwear and accessories. The collection is inspired by dance, musicals, and especially burlesque, while also drawing from the significance of colors and important symbols in culture, particularly those found in popular and dance culture. It focuses on finding multiple functions for an object by scaling it and using different technologies for its realization. The design combines 3D printing and other technologies, such as silver casting and metalworking.
Paweł Kaźmierowski
Project: Childhood Dreams Unleashed
Childhood Dreams Unleashed is an artistic fashion collection that reinterprets childhood fantasies through a contemporary, avant-garde lens. The collection draws inspiration from mythology, fantasy, and pop culture icons such as mermaids, fairies, and dolls, transforming nostalgic imagery into innovative designs. By incorporating luxurious materials, sculptural silhouettes, and intricate detailing, the project emphasizes the intersection between childhood imagination and high-end fashion. Beyond aesthetics, it carries a deeper message about the importance of self-expression, challenging stereotypes, and embracing individuality. The collection serves as both a personal journey and a broader commentary on the evolving landscape of identity and inclusivity in fashion.
Service Design
This category includes complex process, technology, and interaction designs that guide service delivery.
Judges for Service Design: Janka Csernák, Roman Sellner Novotný, Dorothea Wagnerberger
Karolína Menclerová
Project: After Trash
The After Trash project was created in response to insufficient awareness about waste and its environmental impact. This design connects individual involvement with community collaboration through a digital app that motivates users to take an active relationship with waste. The goal is to raise awareness about the amount of waste each person produces and offer concrete steps for more sustainable behavior. The app’s mock-up allows users to track their waste production, join community cleanup events, map waste in nature, or share tips for an eco-friendly approach to waste.
Alex Sinh Nguyen
Project: Potential Objects
Potential Objects is an open system that encourages experimentation, collaboration, and a redefinition of digital craftsmanship. Inspired by Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione, this project challenges the idea of design as a fixed outcome and proposes a dynamic framework for creation. By blending game mechanics with object design, Potential Objects makes prototyping accessible, intuitive, and engaging for designers, artists, and enthusiasts. It supports a new way of thinking about form and production, where constraints are not limitations but creative opportunities.
Lars Sorger, Claudius Pudel
Project: Frozen Research
The VR project Frozen Research allows users to interactively explore climate history through layers of an ice core. Each layer represents aspects of climate history and, as a whole, highlights the severity of the situation. Users are sensitized to the urgency of climate action. In the end, a complete picture is revealed, showcasing the historical development of carbon emissions and the “hockey stick curve.”
Lucia Natalia Perez Gonzalez, Alice Chapman, Shubhangi Shubhangi, Olivia Cederquist
Project: Creative Currents
This project aims to empower local entrepreneurs along the canal network by fostering collaboration, sustainability, and cultural wealth. To achieve this, the team of authors designed a two-sided system:
– Unique retail experiences bringing creativity and commerce to the canals, offering a platform for innovative businesses.
– A tailored skill-sharing program to help “entrepreneurial boaters” learn tools of the trade.
