2019 Evolve Awards – Winners announced

With over 500 entries this year the designs were off the highest calibre at Designer Rugs 2019 Evolve Awards. This years awards saw workshops held in four locations; Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland. Guests joined special guests such as Akira Isogawa, Easton Pearson, Emma Elizabeth and Bernabeifreeman to gain insight into the rug design and production process. This resulted in over 500 submissions into the competition, shortlisted to a top 40; 3 Evolve Emerge finalists and 4 Evolve finalists.
This years prize pool for Evolve was the biggest yet, with a total pool in excess of $40,000 in travel, product and design fees awarded. Both Evolve and Evolve Emerge winners (a new category for emerging designers) received a grand prize this year – an all expense trip to Salone de Mobile 2020.
Designer Rugs Managing Director, Yosi Tal said, “Congratulations to all of our 2019 finalists and in particular the winning designs. Designer Rugs are incredibly proud to drive these awards each year. Entries for 2019 were of the highest calibre and it was an honour to judge the imaginative designs from some of Australasia’s most outstanding interior designers and architects. ”

Pixel by Hadden Daley Evolve Winner and People’s Choice Winner
Bold contrasting colours, geometric patterns, fading and blending hues formed the basis of my design. Warm tones of red, pink and orange create a colourful abstract sunset, distorted stripes of glowing warmth that melt together through heat haze.
Pixilation adds structure and repetition to the floing warm tones and circular form. A single pixel defines a specific colour, as whole each pixel combines to bleed into one spectrum.

Evolve Emerge 2019 Christian Burgos | Cavern
The design was born from the desire to create a rug with an adventurous spirit; a cavern where the mind can explore and wander. I created a series of portals layered over each other to evoke a sense of depth. The design evolved into an ethereal web of organic structures that dynamically shift in scale and colour, creating a peculiar, otherworldly atmosphere that brings the rug to life.

2019 Evolve Award Finalist Cirrus by Lauren Ryan
This design began as a photographic study of woven textiles at a macro scale. Distortion of the structure resulted in a distinctive linear patterning. This lead to the name Cirrus after a cloud form that is characterised by thin white filaments or narrow bands and a composition of ice crystals.

Figgoscope by Marta Figueiredo 2019 Evolve Award Finalist
Warm. Soft. Dynamic. Precise. The Plaka rug is an ode to a childhood delight – an iconic Portugese ice cream, famous for its striking strawberry stripes and elegant cap of chocolate.
Named after the Portugese word for ‘tectonic plates’, the Plaka rug is composed of a series of ‘islands’ united by a thin, lower pile border. These islands are paired stripes in four shades – the colour combinations contrived in accordance with the way the affect each other optically. The result is a subtle illusion which makes each colour feel brighter or darker, depending on the intensity of its neighbouring colour.

Straight Forward by Georgina Whigham 2019 Evolve Award Finalist
My time spent studying in Kyoto provided me with a myriad of experiences and allowed me to immerse myself in the strong Japanese principles of design, which enable the transformation of everyday objects into items of beauty.
The inspiration for my rug was drawn from the weaving process and the juxtaposition of the warp and weft. I focused on the integrity of the yarn, enhancing the design by stippling the colours and varying the pile height creating a surface which refracts the light and brings an extra tactile dimension to the rug. The soft colour palette engenders a feeling of tranquility and lends a sense of rhythm to the design.

Sunrise over Byron Bay by Charlotte Dewar 2019 Evolve Award Finalist
When we slow down, sometimes we can’t help but shift gears. This rug represents sudden and unintentional shifting of gears in Byron. It represents a shift from realism to essence: a move from a complex pixelated world to simple vectors in space. It is a symbiotic relationship between process and thought.
Seeing, really looking at the scene that would become the rug happened over many mornings. It was ever so subtly different, just as I was a little bit different each day. But then I saw it: the constant geometry of nature. This is Sunrise over Byron Bay.

Turn the Page by Lynne Bradley 2019 Evolve Award Finalist
I am voracious reader and great lover of paper. Turn the Page was conceived whilst reading one evening. The physical action of picking up the top right hand corner of a page in my book and turning it back on itself led me to explore ways to translate this sculptural shape into a rug design.
The use of stripes that were at offs with each other helped me to convey the dimensionality and illusion of scale whilst accentuating the page turn. Not content with simply a folded page, I incorporated pink coloured vertical and horizontal stripes to represent the readers chair. Turn the Page is also a metaphor for a ‘fresh start’, which is how I feel with each book that I lose myself into. The layering of a soft and beautifully loomed rug underfoot, a comfortable armchair and a good book add up to a simple pleasure!

This year’s judging panel included Yosi Tal, Managing Director, Designer Rugs; Emma Elizabeth, designer, stylist and creative director; Stephanie Moffitt, Design Director, Mokum; Griffen Lim, Partner and Designer, Make Architects and Brenton Smith, Director, Bates Smart