Designing a sustainable future

‘The RSA changed my life, literally.’ These were the first words of Richard Clarke’s keynote address at the Winners’ ceremony in New York celebrating the culmination of the third annual RSA-US Student Design Awards programme in April 2015.

Richard Clarke is Global Design Vice-President of Nike, Inc. and he is also a past RSA Student Design Award winner. Richard won the award for his fashion entry in the late 1980s while a student in the United Kingdom. Winning an RSA Student Design Award allowed Richard to travel to the United States and begin the design career that set him on the path to Nike. His keynote address in New York to the 2015 cohort of winners in the RSA was an inspiration as he reminded students to stick to their principles and remember the humanity in creativity and design.

The 2015 RSA-US Student Design Award winners represent the best and brightest of emerging designers in the US and they came to New York to showcase their work and demonstrate the power of design in contributing to a more sustainable future.

The 2015 RSA-US Student Design Awards has gone from strength to strength in its three years working with students and faculties at colleges and universities around the United States. This year, the RSA-US SDA received 48 submissions, representing 135 students across a range of briefs on architecture, applied industrial design, communications design and more. From all entries, the judging panel selected the 36 finalists, who were invited to New York to discuss their work. The winning student work ranged from large-scale systems design projects around the future of transport to communications campaigns to encourage us all to do our part to reduce air pollution.

The RSA Student Design Awards programme as a whole operates as a global curriculum and competition in which emerging designers apply their skills to a range of social, economic and environmental issues. The RSA Student Design Awards believes that design is an important skill that can be applied in a variety of ways to help us achieve a brighter and more sustainable future.

The Winners’ Ceremony for the flagship RSA Student Design Awards programme will take place on Thursday, 11^th June at the RSA in London and will feature Malcolm Garrett, RDI, as well as Paul Priestman giving the keynote address. More details and information on how to book a free place will be available soon.

Congratulations to all the winners and participants in the RSA-US Student Design Awards! A special thanks to the 2015 Judging Panel: Seren Paige-Bailey, David Turner, together, Duncan Jackson, Paulo Faria, Simon Kristak, Jenny Whitener, Shashi Caan, Marc Shillum, Agnes Bourne, Mark Breeze, Steve Greenberg, Sophia Kassam, Tim Lavalley, Rich Manuck, Timo Rissanen, Susan Sheffield, Rick Valicenti,  Matthew Waldman and Marci Zaroff.