Lexus has announced the launch of the second edition of its Lexus Design Award, the inaugural edition of which received applications from up-and-coming artists from over 72 countries.

The design competition targets the next generation of innovators from across the world, providing an opportunity for the winners to showcase their works while receiving feedback from world-renowned design professionals.

A total of 12 winners will be announced in early 2014, of which two winners will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work and receive mentoring from two famous designers to create prototypes of their designs and will also receive up to $50,000 to cover prototype production costs.

The two prototypes and also panel displays of the other ten winning entries will be exhibited at Lexus Design Amazing 2014 (a Lexus exhibition space) during Milan Design Week 2014.

Applications for Lexus Design Award 2014, organized in cooperation with “designboom” and “Design Association NPO”, will be open from August 1 until October 15. Applications for the competition can be made via designboom.com/competition/lexus-design-award-2014.

Nobuyuki Negishi, chief representative of Mena Representative Office, Toyota Motor Corporation said, “After the phenomenal success and interest that we received from participants, we’ve decided to launch Lexus Design Award 2014 and hope to continue doing so for years to come.”

“This initiative by Lexus is part of our efforts to support the next generation of creators and encourage creativity in design, something that we as a leading luxury car manufacturer are extremely keen on.

“In fact, we spend a lot of our time, efforts and resources, both financial and human, towards improving our designs and enhancing their impact on the world. We lay a lot of emphasis and importance on producing cars with designs that constantly exhilarate and excite our customers.”

Applying curiosity in a creative manner can result in unexpected innovation that change lives. Hence Lexus has chosen Curiosity as the theme for the 2nd Lexus Design Award, with the hope of challenging and inspiring all the entrants. Designers from all fields, such as architecture, product design and fashion can participate in this competition.

Entries will be evaluated by a panel of judges including Tokuo Fukuichi, executive vice president of Lexus International, and other internationally renowned experts in the field of architecture and design such as Paola Antonelli, Aric Chen, Toyo Ito, Birgit Lohmann, and Alice Rawsthorn.

Assessments will be based on the participants’ understanding of the design concepts for the competition, their interpretation of those concepts, uniqueness of their perspective and originality of solutions proposed under the competition’s theme.

In addition, the mentors who will work closely with two of the competition winners will be Arthur Huang, an architecture graduate from Harvard University and founder and managing director of Miniwiz, an all-in-one design, engineering, manufacturing and product marketing company, and Robin Hunicke, a game designer and executive producer of the award-winning downloadable game – Journey, on Sony's Play Station Network. – TradeArabia News Service