RumpelKumpel wins the Kids Design Award 2020

"And the winner is ..": Kind + Jugend did not take place in Cologne this year, but the Kids Design Award was nonetheless presented. This is because the industry is still searching for ideas and designs for new products, and Koelnmesse and its partners want to give this creative potential a chance and promote young designers. This year too, a young woman won the competition. Find out more about the winner and her design here.

The Kids Design Award was presented for the first time in an online event this year. The prize should give young designers the opportunity to present themselves and establish important contacts. It therefore exclusively promotes product concepts and studies that are not yet commercially available.

This year, a total of 166 young designers from 39 countries worldwide applied with their ideas – a new record for the competition and a wonderful signal for these times! After the jury nominated ten designs, the winner of the title in 2020 has now been decided on in a last, large jury meeting. Chosen as the happy winner was the young designer Maita Petersen with her product "RumpelKumpel": this drawer cabinet with various modules hopes to reinforce the collecting behaviour of children and make them curious about the world. Children should explore, perceive and order their environment according to their taste.

The jury was especially pleased that "RumpelKumpel" provides a highly diverse approach to play. "Here it is about the collecting aspect, which is very important for children. Each 'RumpelKumpel' thus provides access to a very individual picture of the child with its very own collection. In addition to this, there are approaches for supplementing and expansion. 'Rumpelkumpel' also integrates into various living environments, and the object can also be individualised", according to jury member Astrid Sprecht (1steps).

In addition to this, the "3ffen" game by Paula Boldrin also received a special mention: the project arose from the perceived need for integration between the Italian and German ethnic-language groups in South Tyrol. "3ffen" addresses precisely this and hopes to build bridges by promoting encounters and exchanges between children from different ethnic-language groups in a playful way.
Why did the jury decide in favour of a Special Mention this year? This is explained by member Martina Brausem (Gesellschaft für ganzheitliches Lernen e.V. [Society for holistic learning], Cologne) as follows: "'3effen' has a very special design and, especially at present, represents an important aspect in the connecting language of various peoples. We hope that the game brings many people together."

We are very pleased at the creativity in the industry and are already looking forward to finding out which new products we can look forward to seeing on the market in the coming year!