The second selection stage of the Design Lab competition has now been made and 50+ talented students have been selected to continue in the competition to win a six-month internship and 5 000 € cash prize.

The Electrolux professionals together with the public chose 50+ submissions to the 3^rd stage of the competition. Over 100 students, who were accepted to enter the competition developed their concepts and described more in depth what was the consumer insight and research behind their ideas as well as developing new inspirational visuals. This development stage prove to be important for the students as they had the chance to broaden their thinking as well as focus; think what is the core and most important thing in their concept. Many started writing a development blog with amazing stories of their design inspiration. As the 50+ will now continue to develop their concepts in the visual development stage, all the previous concepts and blog posts will still remain on the site for you to enjoy. You can see all the ideas at different qualification stages here.

Congratulations to all who made it to the next round! The next stage is the visual development stage, where the designers have the chance to impress the public and the professionals with a variety of pictures. This stage will also include a chance for the public to make a vote. Read more about the visual development stage here and about the voting here.

The first public voting stage of the competition has now passed and so we have five concepts chosen by the public going directly to the next stage.

The most popular concepts on this round are Carpclean, Music Yue, Cellular Pillow, The World Mirror and Capsule Machine. Congratulations to the popular designs and good luck to the next round!

The rest of the top 50+ concepts, which are chosen by the Electrolux professionals will be made public on this site on Wednesday May 15, so stay tuned! We will then also announce the next brief for the visual development stage and the voting.

The Design Lab 2013 competition has now entered a very exciting stage as the 100+ students are presenting their developed concepts.

During this stage we can really see the potential that each idea witholds, as the students have developed their concepts according to consumer insight and research as well as developed the visuals in context. Each student submission competing for winning the Electrolux Design Lab 2013 competition has the stage 1 and 2 submissions in their individual submission page. The list of all submissions can be found here. Many students have also started blogging to express the thoughts behind the development process, so to get a full idea behind their concepts, we suggest you also indulge reading the development blogs, which are daily updated with interesting posts.

How are the concepts chosen to the next round?

At this point, your support really matters. Five most popular concepts which have submitted to stage 2 will receive automatic access to the next stage, the visual development stage. This means that you have time until May 12 23:59 to vote for your favorite concepts. If you can’t decide on an absolute favorite, support more than one concept by voting and sharing them in social media channels! The rest of the 50+ concepts going to the next stage will be chosen by the Electrolux professionals from Design, R&D and Innovation and their decisions as well as more information about the visual development brief will be announced May 15.

Enjoy the stage 2 submissions, vote and share your favorites!

Not only do we have over 100 great student submissions on the site, now the talented young designers have also started blogging!

By reading the blogs of the competitors you can get a better view behind the scenes: more information about the students, inspiration stories to the concepts and more visually inspiring sketches. In the blogs you can also get more engaged with the students, comment on their designs and thoughts, ask them questions and support them by sharing their posts in social media. What do you think about the development stories of e.g. Atomium, Capsule Machine, Cellular Pillow, Breathing Wall, Coco and Global Chef…? To see the submission of the designer, click “View the Concept” on the left margin of the blog and you get also to vote for the concept. The development blogs are definitely worth visiting if you want to have more insight about how the students approach this years theme of Social Cooking, Natural Air and Effortless Cleaning.

How to find the blogs: From the blog view on the landing page you can see a feed with the latest blog posts. The headline of this feed directs you also to a special student blog landing page, where you can easily scroll through the latest blog updates and development stories. If a student has started blogging, you can also find the blog from the bottom of the student’s dedicated submission page.

Receive latest updates: to keep up to date with all the latest developments, you can order an RSS feed both to the Design Lab blog and the student blogs.

Design Lab has also blog partners, which will be writing about the competition throughout the year, from highlighting the first stages of the competition to announcing the winner.  You can find the links to the blogs here and discover interesting angles and conversations to the Design Lab concepts in these blogs.

So just lean back, open a browser and enjoy the Design Lab blogosphere!

Over 100 contestants, who submitted an idea and a sketch to Design Lab 2013, got through to the next round. Great! So what happens now?

The Electrolux professionals from Design, R&D and Innovation have given feedback to each concept on their individual submission pages. These concepts were chosen to the competition because the ideas were interesting and now the contestants can develop their concept further. Designing is an evolving process: when a designer comes up with an idea, they can develop the design into different directions depending on the influence and inspiration they receive. While the core idea of the concept should remain the same, we do encourage the contestants to develop the concept based on consumer insight and other inspiration relevant to their idea.

So how can a contestant now develop their idea? One option could be to broaden the concept. As an example, developing a service to compliment the product could support the functions of the concept and bring more relevance to the consumer. If the concept is based on a local insight, it can perhaps be developed to have more global relevance. The contestants can also focus and concentrate: If the submission was a general description of a concept , trends and influences, now they can think what are the core elements of the concept that should be further developed into a concrete idea. A good way to find inspiration is to gather consumer insight; by searching for relevant research findings, having discussions with experts or simply engaging in conversation with people around you and talking with friends regarding their hopes and needs.

Later in the competition, in the following stages, there will be more focus placed on details in visual development and functionality. To find out more about what the requirements are for the next stage, please read what happens at stage 2 and voting.

Good luck for all of the contestants, enjoy the design process and remember to have fun!

3D printing technology, wearable appliance accessories, concepts that reflect our memories and highlight our senses, new integrated solutions as well as smart technology in social cooking solutions…

The Electrolux Design Lab concepts reflect exciting trends in this year’s submissions. Over 100 best ideas from 29 countries around the world were placed live April 3 on the Electrolux Design Lab website, where the public can also vote for their favourite concepts. Best concepts chosen by Electrolux professionals and five public favorites make it to the next stage of the competition and compete over the main prize of 5 000 Euros and a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre.

New technologies and inspiring design solutions

Electrolux professionals from Design, R&D and Innovation chose the best concepts from all of the submissions. Design Director and Head of Jury Thomas Johansson comments on the submissions: “The concepts we chose from 1 700 submissions to be further developed are relevant, inspiring and convincing, with clever ideas how to make cooking, cleaning and air cleaning more inspiring in the future. This is an exciting year also because the concepts go beyond products; we received many interesting design solutions which also have services and consumables.”

This year the competition will be conducted in five stages, allowing the contestants to concentrate on different areas throughout the process. The best concepts will now be develop further after which they will be evaluated by Electrolux professionals. The next submission deadline is Wednesday 1^st of May after which 50+ concepts will be chosen to the next stage. Read more about what happents at stage 2.

After an intensive submission period we are happy to announce we received over 1 700 ideas from talented design students from over 50 countries around the world! Thank you for all the submissions!

The professionals at Electrolux from Design, R&D and Innovation will now go through the submissions and select best ideas of Social Cooking, Effortless Cleaning and Natural Air, which then will be published on this site on the 3^rd of April. Stay tuned!

The focus on Effortless Cleaning for this year’s Design Lab competition theme stems from a desire to live in a more enjoyable way with the help of easy and effortless cleaning solutions while having to adapt to living in more compact apartments.

As the future cities growing in population, it will consequently also result into increasing space constraints within urban areas. Our homes become more compact and integrated, room for cleaning appliances is significantly reduced and so smart and visually inspiring design solution are required. Time saving concepts are also desired by consumers more than ever and so making the laborious daily cleaning tasks easier should be at the forefront of thinking and creation for designers. But how can you design inspiring design solutions to such demanding future challenges? As the deadline for the 2013 Design Lab competition comes closer, we have a look back to some of the most inventive cleaning concepts from the  previous Design Lab competitions.

The Spot Cleaner (winner 2011): Adrian Mankovecky, Slovakia
Whether you are a keen back packer or a frequent business traveler you will be won over by this small portable cleaner. The Spot Cleaner stays true to its name and allows the user to clean specific spots, without having to use a full size washing machine. Firstly separate the two components, place on either side of the garment and choose the suitable cleaning program. Negative Ions and steam refresh clothing and remove stains. Powered with a sugar crystal battery, you can use it practically anywhere in the world.

Robo TAPcleaner (2011): Gyu Ha Choi, South Korea
Robo TAP is a smart evolution of the robotic vacuum cleaner used to target an exact area for cleaning. It allows the user to precision steer the robot vac to a specific location simply by tapping the floor with a foot. An IPS system aligned with a simple remote control is attached to the shoe or slipper of the user. Two taps on a dirty spot directs the Robo TAP to the precise area for cleaning. Two more taps will cancel the order and three taps returns the vacuum cleaner to its automatic program.

Bifoliate (2009): Toma Brundzaite, Lithuania
Bifoliateis a space-saving, wall-mounted double dishwasher, which allows the user to put dirty dishes in one compartment and use the other as a shelf for clean dishes. Bifoliate was inspired by the fact that putting clean dishes from the dishwasher away in the cupboard is often a tedious job. Bifoliateuses ultrasonic wave technology to clean, making it more efficient and eco-friendly than today’s dishwashers.

Renew (2009): Louis Filosa, USA
Renew is a smart steamer that refreshes and cleans clothes. With two steam blades, Renew “blasts” garments clean. An infrared scanner and radio frequency identification gather information about a garment from specifically designed clothing tags. Renew is safe to use and disables the steamer if an unidentified object is detected. An OLED touch screen allows interaction; Renew conserves space and is made of recycled aluminum and glass.

Naturewash (2009): Zhenpeng Li, China
Naturewash is a waterless washing machine that uses negative ions to wash nano-coated fabrics. Horizontal in shape, the washing machine has three touch-screen settings: clean clothes, grass scent and flower scent. A user can lie or sit on Naturewash to clean or refresh the clothes they are wearing. In order to obtain a more thorough clean, clothes can also be placed flat on the washer.

E-wash (winner 2007): Levente Szabó, Hungary
E-Wash is a compact washing machine with a regular wash load capacity that uses soap nuts instead of regular detergents. The inspiration for E-Wash came from the polluting effect of both the washing process and the production of the detergent. The soap nut is a natural plant and as such is eco-friendly. Furthermore, the size has been radically reduced to fit into a small living space, while not compromising on wash load capacity.

Eclipse vacuum cleaner (2005): Erik Andershed, Australia
The design philosophy behind the Eclipse was to remove many of the current problems associated with vacuum cleaners. The Eclipse incorporates sensor-controlled navigation, which allows it to automatically move around obstacles. This unique feature enables the cleaning solution to follow you around as you clean.

Dust Mate (2005): Sebastian Alberdi and Gustavo Maggio, Spain
Dust Mate looks like a pair of sports shoes, except where shoes normally track dirt throughout the home, Dust Mate shoes have been transformed into cleaning apparatus. As you walk, the base each shoe collects the dust on the floor. This concept successfully combines an innovative and compact vacuum engine, with strong, flexible materials to provide a unique and strainless experience for the user. The concept could be simply defined as “cleaning whilst living”, as cleaning becomes an unconscious by-product of everyday life.