In Monaco the eight national winners will battle for the grand €10,000 prize and trophy. This year's brief required participants to design a powder compact with mirror and applicator, together with the outer retail packaging, and, optionally, a matching lipstick.
UK competition organiser WDG Azure received 67 entries, with the judging panel narrowing these down to just 7 finalists. Their concepts were presented during a gala evening at London's Design Council on July 8 at which the winner was announced.
Jamie Bates' winning "Metro-sexual" compact for "modern men" has a two-part construction, with a highly polished mirrored steel shell encompassed within a scratch-resistant clear resin case featuring a low wattage LED bulb for low light use.
The mirror-fronted surface can be used when the piece is closed, or the compact will slide open to reveal a magnetic cartridge holding pressed powder in the front an a recess on the back holding the brush. The brush head retracts fully into the applicator for storage.
The packaging is an unbleached board carton with embossed image or logo, whose simplicity Bates says "complements and enhances the beauty of the object contained within".
