Results of the 2nd contest of designers and designers RDC 2013

The 2nd contest of designers and designers has ended. I am pleased to present you his results, interviews with the jury members and plans for the next year.

In the first round, 164 participants competed, which is almost 2 times the number of competitors last year. According to the results of three rounds, Anton Tyulenev took the first place, Alexey Antonov took the second place, Ivan Korzun won the third place. Winners will receive the latest Apple computer models.

It is worth noting that this year the residents of Moscow were the top three winners, whereas in the competition last year there were not any Muscovites in the top three finalists.
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We sent t-shirts to all participants of the first round, confirming that they are designers.

Thanks to feedback collected in Habr's comments last year, errors and shortcomings of the first contest were taken into account. This time we had more time and resources to rebuild the competition platform. So, we made open the pages of work with comments, profiles of participants, statistics, screwed Reformal to collect ideas and opinions, decided on the formats for submitting decisions, and expanded the jury.


The idea of ​​the competition is simple: we collect top specialists from various fields of design and design (heads of design departments of large companies, design teachers, industry professionals), invent 9 tasks for three rounds. Tasks should be close to the tasks that participants and the jury decide in the real world, take into account industry trends, cover different areas of design, vary in complexity and time to decide, allow to reveal the potential of the participant in the design, in the schedule and in the presentation of the solution .
As a result of working on such tasks, strong specialists can hone their skills, and beginners can try themselves in completely new unusual areas and create a virtual portfolio that has been evaluated by a strict jury.
By the way, about the jury. I think this is a great idea - together with the participants to compile a list of people we would like to see as judges, and on behalf of the entire community send them invitations. For some reason, this proposal was zaminusovili Reformal, so if this article is read by those who minus, please explain in the comments.

Interesting facts about the problem

After the publication of the task of rendering the movie page , withdrawn from the licensed online cinema, comments appeared that this could not happen in reality. And almost a week after the tour, the copyright holders cleaned the geologist propyl film from all online sites.
It turned out even more fun with the task about the second-screen for broadcasting boxing on Channel One . A few days after the final of the contest, Channel One released an application identical to the one described in the problem. For us, the organizers and the jury, this was a pleasant sign, demonstrating that we were in trend with these tasks. Responses of participants speak about the same.

Talk to the Jury

This year the competition was judged by Lena Dronova (art director of the Innova company, teacher of the British Higher School of Design), Ivan Semenov (lead designer in the new for Yandex direction of media services. Former art director and co-author of the last restart of the Rambler), Yuri Vetrov (head of the design team and interface design for Mail.Ru), Dmitry Zimin (product manager at Kinokhod, previously head of the design department for Afisha Rambler, organizer of World Usability Day Russia.) and I, Alisher Yakupov (head of design at OK, previously design p Yandex and Habrakhabra). People are all, as you understand, very busy, but still managed to persuade some in a small interview.

Pro experience of participation in the jury, the level of tasks and decisions



Lena Dronova
“I am on the jury of the contest for the first time and I really liked it. It was interesting to study the work, to find the parameters for evaluation, to write feedbacks on Facebook. It is curious to get a cut of the level of designers in the industry. Some guys are really strong and pleasantly surprised.
My favorite of the first two rounds was Sergei Kiselev. I put extremely few fives and almost all of them ended up with him. I liked his application for smartwatches (he did Instagram), I would use this. But in the last round, other leaders unexpectedly emerged. It was interesting to watch how the guys gathered their strength and really put pressure.
The first round should be much easier - just one clear task. The jury would like to see stars, for example, Anton Repponen. I would also like all participants in the second round to receive cool prizes, for example, discounts for studying in the British. ”



Yuri Vetrov
“As part of the jury for the second year, so it is already easier, since there are clear criteria for evaluating the work, it is clear how much time you need to devote to studying each of them, what to look for. But what is difficult is to handle the flow in the first round - this is about 600 jobs that need to be assessed a week and done so thoughtfully. Hardcore!
This year the tasks were more difficult, and the number of participants increased. And it was noticeable that the more complex the task, the more interesting and elaborate the solution. So the level has grown in all characteristics - ideological, depth of understanding of the problem, quality of performance, presentation and description of work.
In the first two rounds, Sergey Kiselev had the strongest works and overall style. However, at the last stage everything changed: the participants, whom I personally or virtually knew, were not among the top three winners. It seems that all members of the jury were surprised. There were other strong works, the authors of which did not particularly manifest themselves in the whole set of tasks, but they gave out 1-2 wildly interesting solutions. I would also give these participants some prizes - at least to mark these decisions.
Vanya Semenov suggested an excellent idea - to conduct a qualifying round, in which there will be only one simple task. In this tour, those who send trash work or try to inhale lamely will fall off. This will simplify the further work of the jury - at the first, the hardest to evaluate stage, there will be fewer works, but they will be of higher quality. ”



Ivan Semenov
“For me it was the first such experience. It turned out it takes more time than I thought, but I liked it. There was a lot of work. And in the first round I had to look through a lot of really bad works. It was a pity to spend time on them.
Last year I did not evaluate it, but the overall level seems to be low. Maybe it's the motivation. Serious designers already have a computer and everything necessary for work. The new one never hurts, of course, but they have their own plans, and, apparently, this is too low a motivation for them.
For me it was a revelation that the same people coped perfectly with one task, and did another just awful. Moreover, it was often so even according to the schedule, although it seems to be independent of the task.
I want to see strong designers. I think you need to change the motivation. Make a prize that hooks the strong. For example, a trip to a cool conference, excursion and acquaintance with a famous western studio or designer. It must be something that not everyone can afford. "



Dmitry Zimin
“Perhaps the most difficult thing is to invent tasks and choose a rating system. Too specific task will not give participants the freedom of thought and the opportunity to reveal themselves, and too general will lead to very different decisions that are difficult to compare with each other. This year the balance was better than in the past. And it pleases. The objectives were more for a holistic vision, for product design, so it’s difficult to compare. The overall picture remains the same: by the third stage, strong, memorable works remain. Therefore, my verdict: the level did not fall, even grew slightly.
The jury can invite the winner of last year. Every time fresh blood. In breakdance there are indicative entries by judges. To show that will be judged by those who are able to do something. We could also do some work from the competition. Let's say one job for a tour from one of the judges. ”

Appeal to the participants

Lena Dronova
“Do not make long descriptions of the works. The main thing is the layouts themselves; you can add small comments to them where necessary. But forget about the sheets of the text with great ideas forever. ”

Yuri Vetrov
“Thank you, it was interesting! And to come up with tasks that are relevant for the current time, realistic enough to be solved almost like real workers. And evaluate them, checking also the correctness of their understanding of the problem. It will be cool if you dig up new topics for yourself and become even more powerful and multifaceted specialists. And we will try to make it so that you want to participate in RDC'2014. ”

Dmitry Zimin
“I want to say thanks to the participants for the effort invested! The tasks were very laborious, but they still did not frighten "our brother."
Wish: usually the content determines the form, but sometimes the form determines the content (smart watch, for example). It is important to be able to distinguish what-when. "

Ivan Semenov
“Think and do not be afraid. There was a lack of thoughtful and bold decisions. Sell ​​your work. There was a huge amount of work with pages of meaningful text and a terrible picture. Research and analysis is great, but keep it for yourself or attach it to work. Research by itself cannot be the goal. Users will not read texts - they want a picture in which they will understand everything without explanation. This is the designer’s job. ”

But the reviews of the winners

Anton Tyulenev, 1st place
“Very good trend. I am glad that I participated so productively.
First, the tasks are baffling and even rejection (“What are these online games? We are doing serious things here, and they want me to download an elf“.).
But then you delve into it and get high not only from solving a problem, but also from understanding a new problem. It is very cool. To my shame, for example, only from a task I learned what a second screen is and paid close attention to all sorts of smart watches. Quickly take a test in a new area, look at technical limitations, find out the problems of an uncharted market - for that you get five points. ”

Alexey Antonov, 2nd place
“I thought that there would be a task about redesigning the competition site - it would not hurt. First of all, it is difficult to view exhibited works from mobile devices: neither the iPad nor the Android phone managed to correctly display pop-up windows with the results (the window will scroll and the pop-up block, in theory, too, but in fact it is not). As a result, you can familiarize yourself with the decisions of your rivals only from desktop operating systems. ”

Ivan Korzun, 3rd place
“I liked everything, especially given the fact that I had no more than 3-6 hours for each task (as a result, many banal solutions). The pace is good, so a very long interval between tasks is a little frustrating. I wanted an aimag, got a macbook - a great kick in the ass, thanks for that. ”

And finally, from me

Thank you very much to all - the participants, the developers of our site, the members of the jury.

Here is my list, on which we will definitely work next year.

1. Of course, we will improve the site: let's make displaying each work and a list of solutions to a task convenient for viewing, viewing from mobile devices.
2. The plans include cooperation with design universities in order to increase the number of participants in the competition.
3. I really want to make the jury elective, judging by the feedback, the participants most of all want to see Ilya Birman, Anton Reponnen, Denis Kortunov and Artem Gorbunov as a jury. I propose to make the list more authentic, collect votes and send an offer to these wonderful people to judge our competition.
4. Have an idea to expand the budget list of prizes. And to award not only winners, but also all participants of the final. And to the winner to hand a completely unearthly thing - a new cylindrical Mac Pro. Or move away from the tradition of giving the glands and come up with something more interesting.
5. Hold a meeting of the participants and jury members in the Mail.Ru office with tea, buns, a disco and presentations of the best solutions.
All tasks, solutions and participants are always available on the site www.russiandesigncup.ru (at the moment there may be bugs with a certificate - we know this, and we will definitely fix it for the next competition).

Jury members and organizers are closely following comments on this post, so ask, give opinions, suggest ideas. Our goal is to make the best design competition in the world together with you and create a powerful community capable of taking design to a new level in Russia.

Let it be a rant, but I believe in them!

Alisher Yakupov and Russian Design Cup contest organizers