Winners of the first Valpak-sponsored design awards announced

09 July 2008

The winners of the first Valpak-sponsored Royal College of Art awards have been announced. Sheraz Arif, Guillaume Drapier and Hermann Trebsche triumphed in the 'Spread the word' category, with their design for including a plant seed in tea bag labels in order to connect social habit to ecological awareness. Jorge Roberto Lopes dos Santos and Emilia Serra were awarded first prize for their entry to the category of 'Shrinking footprints' with a design for a water fountain that encourages the refilling of small plastic bottles. The runners-up were Karen Lacroix and Robert Maslin whose clever design utilised ice-cream as a medium for communicating a message about global warming, and also Yemi Awosile who investigated the applications available for cork to encourage its reuse with the subsequent carbon saving.

Special mention should also be given to Charlotte Crumblehome and Emma Lofstrom for their inventive cookery book design that encourages the sharing of food, recipes and information to reduce the impact of food waste on the environment, and also Vanessa Harden and Nicolas Myers who designed an interactive lighting system that aids energy conservation.

Stephanie Haines, who co-ordinated the project on behalf of Valpak, said 'we are thrilled to have been able to work with such a promising group of postgraduate students. They have all enthusiastically grasped the challenging brief which we set and developed environmentally innovative designs and the means to communicate these to better engage producers and the public.'

Miss Haines also commented 'several companies have expressed an interest in working further with these young designers, so we look forward to seeing things develop further over the coming months.'

The awards will be formally presented at Valpak's annual awards ceremony, which will be held this year on 11 September at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Valpak's Chairman the Rt. Honourable John Gummer said, 'We have enormous talent in this country and many of our best young people come to the Royal College of Art. Their challenge is to take their bright ideas and commercialise them. That's what we can help them to do. I am proud that Valpak will give a real opportunity to people who have already shown their talent and ingenuity, and who can now have the chance to help the rest of us meet the Green Agenda.'

For more information on this initiative, or the Valpak Awards 2008, please contact stephanie.haines@valpak.co.uk