On December 20th, 2012 the National Technical Museum will host the unveiling of the nomination for the Czech Grand Design Prize of 2012. The exhibition, which will run through March 31st, 2013, presents the voting results from the Academy of Design of the Czech Republic, and was created by 51 active curators, theoreticians and publicists, from the Czech Republic as well as other countries. The Academy nominated 134 subjects in the first round, from eight categories, spanning 206 projects. Visitors will see work of nominated designers in the following categories: Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year and Photographer of the Year.

The best design of 2012 will be placed in Ondřej Tobola's and Radim Babák's strikingly designed Hippos Design studio. Tobola and Babák are already the holders of the Designer of the Year title from 2010. The exhibition will be installed in the enormous velodrome, and so a visitor standing inside the ellipse will be at the center of the best designs created in our country this year.

The graphic layout of the exhibition is the work of Martina Černá, from the Imagery studio. Three finalists in each category will be chosen from the 2012 nominees during the second round of voting, January 17th, 2013, in the Letná castle. The third round of voting will then decide the ultimate winner.

Co-producers of the exhibition are the National Technical Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague and the Profil Media Company. Curators of the exhibition are Jana Zielinski and Jiří Macek, in cooperation with Jiří Hulák of the National Technical Museum. The number of nominations is large, and there is an unbelievable amount of new talent in the field of fashion design, which is represented in the category Discovery of the Year – Cena Preciosy. The Designer of the Year category is also quite strong this year, where we find a new generation of designers alongside the famous names from years gone by. These new designers have international experience, and show all the marks of accomplished experts. As examples, we mention Lucie Koldová, Jan Plecháč, Henry Wielgus and Matěj Chaber. It is no accident that the first two are title holders of the Discovery of the Year from previous Czech Grand Design competitions, say curators Jana Zielinski and Jiří Macek.

The exhibition will change during the voting to display to visitors the finalists, and later, the ultimate winners of the individual categories. These will be marked with special graphics.

Public award:

This voting is done by the public. Visitors may vote on site, in the building of the National Technical Museum, or online in the second round. The public may vote in the categories: Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Photographer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year and Jewelry Designer of the Year.

The first round of voting will run from December 12th through January 15th, 2013, right in the exhibition. Visitors will receive a form and will select three designers from all the entries for the Public Award. The ballots will be counted on February 17th, and the five designers with the most votes will advance to the second round. This will take place from February 18th through March 10th on specified websites, including www.czechgranddesign.cz, as well in the exhibition again. The winner of the Public Award will be announced at the gala evening of the Czech Grand Design award ceremony, March 16th, 2013 in the Stavov theater.