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PRO FINNISH DESIGN PRIZE

(established 1990)


The Pro Finnish Design Prize is awarded to firms and companies for the comprehensive and integrated use and application of design in product development, manufacturing and marketing and for their own corporate image. The purpose of the prize is to promote the use of design by companies and to support the manufacture of innovative products of high quality, thus promoting and improving competitiveness.

The Pro Finnish Design contest is open to companies producing industrially manufactured investment goods or consumer items. The products or product series must be new, having been in production for no longer than two years. A jury composed experts representing industry, the business community and design selects the prize-winning companies from among the entrants. The prize jury annually invites a top foreign expert in the field to be its honorary member.

The Pro Finnish Design Prize is awarded biennially, and the prize contest is declared in the May of the preceding year.

The prize was founded by Design Forum Finland and the Fennia Group. In addition to the main prize, the jury awards 10 to 15 honourable mentions. The prize sum of FIM 100 000 (ca. e 16 800) is donated by the Fennia Group. The main prize and the honourable mentions entitle the winners to participate in an exhibition held by Design Forum Finland in Helsinki, which will possibly tour other localities in Finland.

The Pro Finnish Design prize was awarded for the last time in 2001. It has been replaced by the Fennia Prize.

The Fennia Group

The Fennia Group wishes to promote Finnish business and entrepreneurship, and to reinforce its competitiveness. Design management has become part of the management system of companies in the same way as security management. The Fennia Group is interested in developing both areas and sees significant connections between them. One of these is safety. Design will improve the quality of a product, and correctly design products are user-friendly and safe both at work and in the home, providing a trinity of design, quality and safety.

The Pro Finnish Design Seminar

In connection with the Pro Finnish Design Prize awards a seminar for companies and design professionals on different themes is held.

These seminars have discussed, among other issues, the role of design in promoting competitiveness and in the internationalization of enterprises and companies, and the state of design in Finland from the Scandinavian perspective. The speakers of the seminars have included Alexander Neumeister of Germany, Toshiyuki Kita of Japan and Svein Knutsen of Norway, as well as numerous Finnish professionals in the fields of trade, industry and design.

(Prize winners: 1990 1992 1994 1997 1999 2001)