Dezeen Magazine

Bombay Sapphire at the London Design Festival: Designer Glass Competition winner

The third of our movies commissioned by Bombay Sapphire during London Design Festival features designer Yves Behar announcing the winner of the Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition at the prize-giving ceremony in London on Wednesday.

The prize was won by young German designer Bruno Everling for his Liquid Sapphire design (top image).

See yesterday's movie about Jaime Hayon's giant chess set installation in Trafalgar Square, and Wednesday's movie about Tom Dixon's Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival 2009 special category.

Here's the press release from Bombay Sapphire about the winner of the Designer Glass Competition:

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London, 23 September 2009 – German designer, Bruno Everling has been named the £5,000 winner of the eighth annual Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition, one of the top design contests in the world for up-and-coming designers.

Bombay Sapphire gin is instantly recognisable around the world thanks to its striking, translucent blue glass bottle design. It’s fitting then that each year thousands of emerging designers from around the world enter the Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition by designing a martini cocktail glass inspired by the distinctive blue bottle. In 2009, nine finalists have been selected for the global final of the Competition held as part of the London Design Festival.

Bruno, who is studying product design at the Schwäbisch Gmünd school of design near Stuttgart, was awarded the £5,000 prize for ‘Liquid Sapphire’, a glass design which he says was inspired by the “timeless elegance” of Bombay Sapphire and its “fusion of tradition and modernity”.

The judges described the winning design as: “a very beautiful, sophisticated glass” with “the potential to be a design classic”. At first sight, the glass has a simple, beautifully faceted design but hidden from view, inside the stunning exterior is the classic conical shape of the martini cocktail glass.

The first prize was presented by world renowned designer, Yves Béhar, at an awards ceremony held at the spiritual home of Bombay Sapphire, the Bombay Sapphire Blue Room in Bankside, London, where the finalists’ martini cocktail glasses will be on display until Saturday, 26 September. Guests at the awards event included international designers and the finalists who had travelled to London from around the world.

Along with Yves Béhar, the judging panel included: Wallpaper* editor-at-large, Suzanne Trocmé; glass designer, Simon Moore; designer, Moritz Waldemeyer; Jeremy Langmead, editor, Esquire (UK); and cocktail expert and global ambassador for Bombay Sapphire, Merlin Griffiths.

The second prize of £3,000 was awarded to Nathan Studer of Switzerland for his ‘Close Glass’ described by the judges as an “adventure… intriguing and creative”. The winner of the third prize of £2,000 was Ekarin Khunapinya of Thailand, who was also this year’s People’s Prize award winner receiving nearly 3,000 votes online from design enthusiasts around the world. Each of the winners also received a Baccarat crystal trophy.

The global finalists in London represented Brazil, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and Thailand.