The Young Designer Prize returns to the LNMA Museum of Applied Arts and Design 

Exhibition opening at 6 pm on Thursday, 4 September, 2025

On September 4, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA) Museum of Applied Arts and Design (Arsenalo g. 3A, Vilnius) will become the center of the Young Designer Prize competition: it will host the winners’ award ceremony, lectures by international design experts, and the opening of the exhibition. 

 

99 design projects competed in the competition 

 
This year the competition received 99 final projects, divided into five categories: product, communication, fashion, interior design, and design research. 

 

All the projects were judged by the independent international jury consisting of architect Jolanta Starzak, design research specialist Marco Ferrari, industrial designer Meret Wacker, creative director Michael Kampe, and sustainability expert Vinay Bhajantri. They nominated 15 of the most promising projects, which will be exhibited at the competition exhibition. 

 

„The new generation of designers at the exhibition boldly look into their inner world and complex social phenomena. The projects focus on topics such as psychological well-being, social justice, community, identity, and memory. These are designers who do not run away from problems, but seek to understand them, identify them, and propose sensitive, empathy-based solutions,” says Daina Eičaitė, curator of the competition and project manager at the Design Innovation Center of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, summarizing this year’s projects. 

 

Opening doors to the young designers 

 
For the third year in a row, the competition awards ceremony and exhibition will take place at the LNMA Museum of Applied Arts and Design. The partnership with the museum is an important step in the young designers’ careers, giving them the opportunity to present their work in a national context. 

 

„The LNMA is delighted to open its doors to the creators of the Young Designer Prize, whose courage and visionary outlook transcend conventional boundaries, inviting us to rediscover the power of design. This exhibition is like a living creative pulse, combining the talent, empathy, and social responsibility of the younger generation. As partners, we not only provide a space for new ideas, but also celebrate design as a bridge connecting academic enthusiasm with society’s vision for the future,” says Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, Deputy Director General for Exhibitions and Education at the LNDM. 

 

Competition program at the museum 

 
This year’s activities at the museum will be complemented by a free lecture series, JDP Design Talks. On September 4 at 3 p.m., members of the international competition jury will share their experiences, current issues in the field of design, and advice for young designers. 

 

After the presentations, at 6 p.m., the museum will host a formal competition winners’ awards ceremony, during which the winners of the main prizes will be announced. The jury will award one winner in each category. 

 

Immediately after the ceremony, guests will be invited to visit the exhibition of competition entries, which will be on display at the museum until September 28, 2025, and will be exhibited at the Panevėžys City Art Gallery in October. 

 

Exhibition architecture: between boundaries and freedom 

 
The structure and space of the exhibition were designed by Vytautas Gečas. The open structure of the exhibition focuses on the typological diversity of the exhibits in the Young Designer Prize competition and the uniqueness of their authors’ creative approaches. The seemingly unfinished, still under construction or constantly changing structure of the exhibition, which has taken on the form of a grid, schematically introduces boundaries between the differences between projects, representing different ways of treating and seeing. 

 

„The grid structure was inspired by several different situations – the set design of the film Dogville, which defines the spaces in which each work operates but destroys the boundaries between them; the formation of a platform within the framework of educational institution programs; and the beds designed to grow and nurture future talents and their creativity,” the architect presents the creative concept. 

 

Shaping a new generation of designers 

 
For more than a decade, the Young Designer Award has been one of the most important events in the Lithuanian design ecosystem. The competition acts as a bridge between the academic community and the professional market, giving young creators a unique opportunity to present their ideas to business, industry, and the general public. This visibility provides a significant boost to their future professional careers, while the competition itself encourages healthy competition and contributes to the overall growth of the Lithuanian design field. 

 

More information about the competition: www.jdp.lt 

 

 

Organizer Vilnius Academy of Arts Design Innovation Center 

Funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture 

Exhibition architecture Vytautas Gečas and Ana Litvin 

Graphic design Brigita Elena Kudarauskaitė 

Partners: LNMA Museum of Applied Art and Design, Lithuanian State Patent Bureau, European Union Intellectual Property Office, intelektine.lt, Centras magazine, Terasima 

Sponsors: Fiskars Group, Nordcurrent, Jung, Audimas 

Information sponsor: LRT 

 

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