Blacksheep interior designer Ben Webb was confirmed as the unanimous winner of the Ege Carpets design competition by judges Jacqueline Griffiths, in-house designer, at Ege Carpets, renowned textile designer Geoff Healey, and myself, in my capacity of editor of FX magazine.
The culmination of the competition, which had been running in FX over the past six months, resulted in a whirlwind trip to Denmark and the Ege Carpets factory in the south of the country for the four finalists, to enable them to transform their digital 2D digital entries into 3D samples of carpet, and for the judging panel to select the winner.
In association with FX, Ege Carpets wanted to give a designer or design student the chance to see their carpet design go into production. The winner will receive a two-day internship with ege’s design team in Denmark and three per cent of all gross sales from their carpet design for three years from the date of its launch.
The other finalists were Jon Carter and Lucy Dickson, both architecture students from Oxford Brookes University graduating this year, and Grace Foster, who’s about to graduate from her BA textile course at Leeds College of Art. The four finalists were asked to produce their designs as a square metre sample at the facilities at Ege’s enormous factory near Billund, home of Legoland, during a two-day trip.
They were then asked to produce a second sample by adapting the colours of their pieces to the company’s standard palette. This proved very useful in the judging process to assess how flexible their designs could be for clients. We then scored all four submissions without collaboration, so none of the judges knew who was actually the winner until the official announcement and prize presentation.
For me Ben’s design had the visual punch of ‘the ground’ of a Rembrandt painting, rich with subtle visual interest, yet dependent on the colours and tones selected the bold geometry could also dissolve into the background.
While I was there for just the one day, whereas the other judges and finalists had been able to spend two days with Ege Carpets, the company’s generosity was evident in goodwill, good humour and good food. But as I was walking from one part of the factory to another, I spotted what I thought might have been a company mascot. Or pet? But on doing a double take, I realised that ‘it’ was just one of a herd of bison, owned and cared for by Ege Carpets. This is apparently the legacy from the company’s founder Mads Eg Damgaard, a keen supporter of wildlife conservation.
It’s not often you come across bison in corporate and contract design, but it’s definitely memorable! I wondered, post-competition, will a bison now be named after the winner? You have to agree that Ben the Bison has a certain appeal, as indeed does Ben Webb’s winning design.
