Nick Ross wins design award Formex Nova 2016

Nick Ross is the winner of the design award Formex Nova. The award goes to a young designer who is working in the Nordic region. The winner has been selected by an expert jury and the award includes a sponsored activity to a value of 50 000 SEK.

The jury’s statement: Nick works methodically with material, form and an infallible feeling for design. His volumes are well-balanced and the touch is personal, often with a humorist twist and historical reference, and he also challenges traditional aesthetic and economic values with a liberating lack of respect.

– As an award with a monetary prize that goes towards creating and exhibiting new work, the Formex Nova award is very important, as it helps support young Scandinavian designer in the early stages in their careers. Most other prizes for young designers I am aware of focus on the projects presented, which is where Formex Nova differs in that it is about the designer and their complete body of work so far. In that respect it´s a great feeling to be given an award based on me as a designer in general rather than a single project. It seems more personal I guess, says Nick Ross.

Nick Ross was born in Scotland and has been based out of Stockholm since 2010. His work looks at the role of history and storytelling in how we perceive the world around us. He does this by working with themes such as place, origin, and the role fiction plays in past and present societies. His primary interest lies in how guesswork or cultural ‘curation’ can create situations where we are influenced to think in certain ways and feel certain things. From a purely esthetic point of view, he likes the friction between the elegant and the brutal.

– I work both with self-initiated projects where I in most cases start off with a historical or cultural story which I want to tell in some way, and with briefs from furniture producers where I try to implement the visual forms and references from the self-initiated projects into that market. Most designers are wary of moving between these two forums but I think the friction there is important in keeping the work fresh.

The Formex Nova award
Formex established the Formex Nova award – Nordic Designer of the Year, to promote high-quality Nordic design created by a still relatively unknown designer working in the Nordic interior design industry. The criteria is that the designer lives and work in the Nordic region and have a college education or have demonstrated the ability to make innovative, artistic and usable products. And that the designer has at least one product in productionor had a product exhibited in a larger context.

The award includes an exhibition at this spring’s Formex as well as SEK 50,000 for a sponsored activity. The nominees will each receive a unique diploma that has been designed this year by Sigríður Rún.

The 2016 jury consists of Lotta Lewenhaupt, journalist and writer, Kerstin Wickman, professor in design history, Ewa Kumlin, CEO at Svensk Form, and Anders Färdig, founder and CEO of Design House Stockholm. The guest jury member for 2016 is Johannes Karlström from Note Design Studio.

Previous Formex Nova winners include Hanna Hedman and Simon Klenell, Sweden, 2011, Mari Isopahkala, Finland, 2012, Mattias Stenberg, Sweden, 2013, Line Depping, Denmark, 2014 and Erik Olovsson & Kyuhyung Cho, Sweden 2015.

Nick Ross

Age: 30 years
Education: Bachelor in Product Design – Grays School of Art Aberdeen, UK Masters Interior Architecture and Furniture Design – Konstfack, Sweden.
Design studio (opened): 2014
Previous exhibitions/awards:
Last of the Free, Palazzo Clerici – Milano, 2016
White Lies Slab series, Cascina Cuccagna – Milano, 2016
Favoris, Moustache – Paris, 2015
Ung Svensk Form, ArkDes – Stockholm, 2015
Crystal-Rum 319, Hotell Diplomat – Stockholm. 2014
Örnsbergsauktionen, Konstakademien – Stockholm, 2014
Muuto Talent Award 2014
Architectural Digest Emerging Designer, 2014
Green Furniture Award 2014 (juried by Giulio Cappellini)
Ung Svensk Form, Designersblock – London, 2013
Design Anima, Rossana Orlandi – Milano, 2013
Ung Svensk Form, 2012

For more information, please visit www.formex.se or contact:
Christina Olsson, +46 8 749 44 28, christina.olsson@stockholmsmassan.se
Catarina Oscarsson +46 8 749 43 66, catarina.oscarsson@stockholmsmassan.se

Formex is arranged by Stockholmsmässan and takes place twice a year. It is the leading Nordic meeting place for new products, business opportunities, trends, knowledge and inspiration in the interiors industry. Formex welcomes more than 950 exhibitors, 24,000 trade visitors and more than 850 media representatives.