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JAMIE HEWLETT WINS £25,000 DESIGNER OF THE YEAR PRIZE
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The winner of the Design Museum's £25,000 Designer of the Year award is Jamie
Hewlett, co-creator of the band Gorillaz, for conceiving the graphics, website,
animations and groundbreaking "live" performances of the world's most successful
virtual band.
Jamie Hewlett was named as Designer of the Year - the UK's most prestigious
design prize - at the Design Museum on the evening of 22 May by this year's chair
of the jury Christopher Frayling, rector and professor of cultural history of the
Royal College of Art and chairman of Arts Council England. Christopher Frayling
said "Jamie Hewlett has not only created a personal mythology with the virtual
band Gorillaz, he has also created designs for the direction in which technology
and culture are going - the shape of things to come."
Designer of the Year is the annual award for the UK designer or design team
whose work made the biggest contribution to design in the past year. Four
designers were nominated for this year's prize. Alongside Jamie Hewlett were
Tom Dixon, selected for his furniture and lighting design; The Guardian design
team for the radical redesign of the newspaper; and Cameron Sinclair for his
work with the humanitarian design group Architecture for Humanity. Their work
has been on display in an exhibition at the Design Museum since March, which
will continue until 18 June 2006.
Born in 1968, Hewlett designed the comic book anti-heroine Tank Girl before
creating Gorillaz with musician Damon Albarn. The band members - 2D, Murdoc,
Russel and Noodle - are brought to life in artwork, promos, Gorillaz website and
animated performances conceived and designed by Jamie Hewlett. Hewlett
works from his West London-based design company Zombie Flesh Eaters.
Tens of thousands of members of the public voted for their favourite nominee to
win the £25,000 prize at the Designer of the Year exhibition and online on the
Design Museum website. The outcome of the public vote counted towards the
choice of the winner together with the votes of the four jurors: public sector
design reformer and last year's winner of Designer of the Year Hilary Cottam;
head of design and architecture at the British Council Emily Campbell; fashion
designer Christopher Bailey; and Kevin McCloud, lighting and furniture designer
and television presenter.
Submitted: 31 May 2006
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