[Column] Realize your dream of being a car designer with Auto Design Award

[Ha, Young-Sun] Auto Design Award, the global car design competition for anyone interested in car design, has started.

Under the theme of ‘Mobility, Re-imagined World’, Auto Design Award would have been held by September 9, and anyone interested in car design can submit works through Auto Design Award official website(www.autodesignaward.com) by August 10.

There will be 28 winners’ and the winners will be announced on August 21. 20 experts from Korean and overseas car design field will give fair and careful evaluation on every entrant’s works. Overall cash prize is 15,300,000 won(Korean currency), and a grand prize winner will get 5,000,000 won.

Auto Design Award especially gives some privilege to winners such as job opportunity in car brands, and this makes not only university students but also professional car designers feel interested in the competition.

Last year, 338 works from 11 countries were submitted. Among 20 winners, one winner was employed by Haval Motors, Great Wall Motor Company in China, one was employed by Chinese car company Gwangzhou Automobile Group, and one entered one of the most famous universities in Korea. So Auto Design Award has evaluated as a great opportunity for people who want to become a car designer.

Korea is one of the world's top competitors in automobile design. There are over 1700 studios operated by Korean car designers in the world. This is the second largest number, while Europe is in first place. By each country, U.K. is in the first place and Korea ranks second.

Also, Hubert Lee, director of Mercedes-Benz design, Daimler, Jungsam Park, project design leader in Nissan, Hoeyoung Hwang, exterior designer in Bentley Motors, Joowan Sung, chief designer of Renault Asia, and Sangyup Lee, director of Hyundai and Genesis design are renowned Korean car designers working in world famous car brands.

Consumer Insight’s recent research found that customers consider the car design as the most important feature when they buy a new car. The result proved the importance of car design, while other features such as price, fuel efficiency, performance or safety are all vital.

There are three world famous international design competition-REDDOT, IDEA, and IF-. Unlike those design competition, Auto Design Award is a global design challenge solely for car design.

Though the history of Auto Design Award is not long, but it does have sustainability. Hope Auto Design Award can become a car design competition which leads global car design trends.