Why Design? A Selection of the Slovak Design Award 2024 + 2025
As a question. For the public. For life. For memory. For the future.
The Slovak Design Center and the East Slovak Gallery invite you to visit the exhibition Why Design?, subtitled A Selection of the Slovak Design Award 2024 + 2025. The exhibition presents the diverse forms of contemporary design and demonstrates that its role is not limited to providing functional solutions, but also involves asking questions, opening up discussions and exploring new possibilities.
Through five thematic sections, visitors are invited to discover how design responds to the needs of individuals and society, and the role it plays in culture, everyday life and shaping the future.
Design as a Question
Does design always have to provide a ready-made solution? Or can its significance also lie in challenging established assumptions and encouraging us to think differently?
The Design as a Question section presents author-led, experimental and research-based projects that use design as a critical and cultural practice. Experiments with typography and books, new possibilities for reusing materials, and projects that create space for dialogue demonstrate that design does not always need a predetermined function or a clear-cut outcome. Its value may lie in the process of exploration itself, in the experience it creates, or in the questions it raises.
Design for the Public
The Design for the Public section focuses on projects that serve the wider public interest and contribute to the quality of our shared environment.
Visitors will discover information systems, solutions for cultural institutions, means of transport, medical equipment, furniture for children, and devices designed to detect environmental risks. These diverse examples demonstrate how design can improve safety, make information and culture more accessible, facilitate mobility, and support the work of professionals.
Design for Life
The Design for Life section explores solutions we encounter at home, while on the move and during our leisure time. Furniture, lighting, exercise and camping equipment, as well as graphic design from our everyday surroundings, demonstrate how form, materials and carefully considered details shape the user experience. A bed that can be assembled without tools, exercise equipment integrated into interiors, and objects with multiple uses remind us that even seemingly self-evident solutions are based on careful observation of people’s needs and everyday habits.
Design for Memory
What do we preserve from the past, and how do we carry it into the present? The Design for Memory section presents projects that connect cultural heritage, identity and contemporary creative practice.
Books, typefaces, visual identities, wine labels, clothing and costumes demonstrate the various ways in which design records the stories of places, develops traditional craft techniques and communicates cultural values to new audiences. The works also remind us that cultural memory is not static. Every new interpretation determines what we preserve, what we rediscover, and what meaning we give to inherited stories and objects today.
Design for the Future
How can today’s designs contribute to a more responsible future? The Design for the Future section focuses on environmental, social and systemic challenges and explores the ways in which design can respond to them.
It presents the development of new materials, clothing and accessories, alternatives to car-based transport, as well as communication campaigns countering disinformation and encouraging voter participation. These projects demonstrate that sustainability is not just about the choice of materials and production methods. It also encompasses how we use resources, engage people, share information and make decisions about matters that affect us all.
Why Design?
The five thematic sections offer five perspectives on the many meanings of design and the ways in which it shapes our lives. From experimental, author-led creative work and solutions for public services and everyday needs to cultural memory and a sustainable future, the exhibition presents design as a creative discipline that responds to the world around us while also helping to transform the way we understand it.
Exhibiting designers and contributors:
Companies, studios and design practices
Architekti zerozero, BELVE s.r.o., Botas a.s., Büro Milk, DIPLOMAT DENTAL s.r.o., eRobots, ILLOLA, janevat, JAVORINA, v.d., Komplot, LAB SNG, Mayamay, RABADA, SAM INDUSTRIES a. s., Studio Echt, Škoda auto design, THIS IS LOCCO, VNEM Studio, Vstúpte, n.o., WERKEMOTION, Wiktor Leo Burnett, Zeitgeist Unlimited s.r.o.
Authors, designers and co-authors
Katarína Balážiková, Pavol Bálik, Max Basala, Michaela Bednárová, Juraj Behún, Marcel Benčík, Filip Birkner, Patrik Bujňák, Matúš Buranovský, Simona Császárová, Daniel Csúz, Samuel Čarnoký, Adam Danko, Petra Debnárová, Dano Dekan, Terézia Denková, Mikina Dimunová, Adrián Dvorský, Jon Dujaka, Robert Finkei, Dominik Fodora, Aurélia Garová, Zuzana Gombošová, Peter Hajdin, Romana Halgošová, Lenka Hámošová, Diego Hernando, Matúš Hnát, Marián Horkovič, Juraj Horňák, Martin Chlpík, Barbora Chudá, Rastislav Chynoranský, Patrik Illo, Matúš Ivanko, Adam Janečka, Simona Janišová, Martin Jenča, Sylvia Jokelová, Ondrej Jób, Monika Juríková, Eva Mária Kaprinayová, Tímea Kepová, Juraj Korec, Juraj Kováč, Barbara Kowalczuková, Šimon Kožička, Tomáš Kráľ, Lucia Stümpel Krnčanová, Veronika Kurcinová, Marián Laššák, Peter Liška, Tereza Maco, Peter Machata, Andrej Maruška, Branislav Matis, Miloslav Melichárek, Marek Menke, Matej Mihályi, Bystrík Míček, Ester Mládenková, Lucia Mlynček-Tóthová, Pavlína Morháčová, Maris Nisu, Michaela Novosadová, Daniela Olejníková, Slavomír Ozaník, Beáta Paňáková, Jisung Park, Michaela Pašteková, Barbora Podola, Martin Polakovič, Jakub Pollág, Patrik Platko, Kristýna Pundová, Matej Rabada, Veronika Rabadová, Martin Remiš, Igor Rjabinin, Filip Ruisl, František Michal Sebestyén, Peter Simonik, Jozef Sklenka, Viliam Slaminka, Michal Sládek, Georgios Somarakis, Vít Staněk, Aleksandra Stencel, Chloe Scheffe, Hana Šegedová, Daniel Šmíra, Lukáš Štepanovský, Mária Štraneková, Viktor Tabiš, Jakub Teringa, Michal Tornyai, Tomáš Toth, Helen Tóth, Miroslav Tóth, Jana Vaterková Ťapaj, Anna Ulahelová, Katarína Vass, Stefan Webelhorst, Ján Zachar, Adam Zakucia, Stanislav Zeman
Curators: Juraj Blaško, Michala Lipková
Production Team
Director of the East Slovak Gallery: Dorota Kenderová
Director of the Slovak Design Center: Maroš Schmidt
Slovak Design Award Coordinator: Zuzana Böhmerová (SCD)
Exhibition Production: Valér Bakajsa (ESG), Gabriela Rybáriková (SCD), Michal Štofa (ESG)
PR and Media Contacts: Katarína Barloková (SD), Soňa Stano Jambrichová (ESG)
Accompanying Programmes: Viera Ballasch Dandárová (ESG), Petra Tušan Filipiaková (ESG), Gabriela Rybáriková (SCD)
Professional Collaboration: Silvia Seneši Lutherová (SCD)
In Collaboration with: Slovak Design Museum
Visual Identity and Graphic Design: Terézia Denková, Barbara Kowalczuková
Exhibition Architectural Design and Realisation: Jakub Tóth (Ateliér Tóth s. r. o.)
Exhibition Installation: Richard Tomory (ESG), Peter Vrábel (ESG), Adriana Štetiarová (ESG), Júlia Deáková (SCD)
Films about the Award Winners: Living Documentary OZ / Vladimíra Hradecká
Guided Tour with the Curators: 19 November 2026 at 5:00 pm
Exhibition Opening: 19 November 2026 at 6:00 pm
Exhibition Dates: 20 November 2026 – 21 February 2027
Venue: East Slovak Gallery – Hall Q, Hlavná 27, Košice