Winner of the Design Management Award 2020
Award winner
Plydesign Ltd
Jury statement:
Plydesign 2014–2020 – The triumph of vision and spirit
The European Commission describes the furniture industry as a dynamic sector, as it allows the ideal combination of new technologies, innovation, creative design thinking and cultural heritage. When the EU experts made this statement, they had companies like Plydesign as examples in mind.
One of the founders, Tamás Babits, was ‘born into’ furniture manufacturing, and after returning from his studies in the USA he joined his family’s business, called Licit Ltd, a company with a decade of manufacturing experience as well as a professional team and machinery. He had a clear vision of how to manufacture excellent quality furniture with bigger added value and introduced a fresh approach into his family’s traditional timber factory.
“Product design is not an individual activity,” said András Kertékgyártó, Plydesign’s other founder, in an interview, “but a continuous dialogue, cooperation and a series of feedbacks.”During ideal cooperation the designer and the manufacturer do not limit but inspire each other since they have the same goal: to create a new product. The plywood chair concept he deve-loped during his studies in Finland confirmed that he was open to cooperation. Then Plydesign came into being.
The two founders’ philosophy is a textbook example of “Successful Corporate Strategy”. Moreover, they did not just do the thinking but also did all the work and with consistent efforts they realised their plans.
During the six years of successful operation and as a result of integrating design management into the organisational structure, the originally two-man business has grown into a team of six (CEO, head designer, commercial and sales manager, project manager, PR and marketing manager, graphic designer) confidently and proactively using the tools of digital marketing communication. The company can rely on a solid manufacturing background and a decade of experience, allowing it to be open to innovative ideas, as well as on machinery and excellent experts that guarantee the successful journey of their furniture from the design table to serial production.
At Plydesign everybody knows that it is not enough to be good but it is also important to present a good image. Therefore, their communication strategy is outstanding and perfectly reflects the high standards of the company and its products, while also efficiently supporting sales. As a result, more than 80 percent of their income is generated by exports. That is how a company can enter the markets outside Hungary. Plydesign assigns great importance to knowledge transfer during its operation: it actively supports the education of the next generation and helps young Hungarian designers; moreover, it is committed to participating in roundtable discussions and workshops organised to raise awareness about design.
It can be stated with confidence that Plydesign’s activity will stimulate the growth of the Hungarian furniture industry in the long run and provides an example to follow. While original Hungarian products are few and far between in today’s domestic furniture production sector, Plydesign has proven that only design thinking and high quality furniture production can lead this sector out of the jungle of cheap labour and mass products.
Plydesign Ltd
The furniture brand established in 2014 manufactures high quality and innovative products that are competitive on the international markets too. One of its key objectives is to stimulate the domestic furniture industry through the design attitude and business strategy of its founders and contribute to strengthening the sector’s international position. The Plydesign team believes that a designer’s mission goes far beyond producing functional and aesthetic objects. In their view design starts with the study of the complex system of relations and connections between society and the individual, which is why their products meet real and everyday needs and requirements. Their primary focus is chair design but their product range includes coffee and dining tables too. Their pieces meet 21st-century expectations, whether they are designed for home or public use. Their models, typically manufactured using profile compressed plywood technology, are distinguished by their elegance with their curved soft forms inviting to be touched. The carefully finished surfaces, the restrained forms and the warm tone of the wood are combined to provide users with an experience that stands the test of time. Besides comfort it is important for the company to design furniture that can be transported cost-effectively and assembled easily, while sustainability is also a key factor for the brand. They only use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified timber; moreover, the technology they use is also environmentally friendly since less waste is generated when working with plywood than with block wood. Plydesign furniture is durable and can thus serve several generations.
Cooperation and knowledge transfer are of the essence for the brand. This is exemplified, for example, by Plydesign’s close relations with the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, in the framework of which it actively supports the up and coming generation of designers and is committed to participating in round table discussions and workshops aimed at raising awareness about design. In addition to developing and distributing their own collections, Plydesign also provides production organisation, harmonisation and logistical services to foreign companies. This includes locating the optimal suppliers for a foreign partner and coordinating the wide range of processes, while organising the final assembly and the dispatch of the products to the customers of the given partner.
The brand’s slogan "We do care" succinctly expresses Plydesign’s ars poetica: it reflects the caring attention and planning that is present at every level of the business operation from product development and material use through the high quality of the products all the way to the high standard of corporate culture as well as the high quality of business and customer relations.
The jury recognised three other candidates for their exemplary achievement with a certificate of merit.
Pécs Organ Manufactory Ltd
Jury statement:
The founders, Attila Budavári and Csaba Budavári, see organ building as the continuation of the deservedly world renowned tradition started by the Angster factory in Pécs, which several generations of the Budavári family had worked for. The manufactory has built and restored more than one hundred organs since 1992 and the apropos of their design management nomination was provided by the success of their own development: the modular box organ. The infinite variation of the traditionally manufactured, portable ranks allow the instrument to produce a combination of various organ sounds, thus making this piece a text-book example of a complex project maximally integrating user needs and implemented with high quality applied arts craftsmanship. The final product is distinguished by the use of natural materials and traditional methods as well as decades of knowledge in regard to implementation, while meeting the global requirement of novel and multifunctional use. The design thinking in the company spans from design intuition through the integration of the entire process of organ building to unique marketing responding to user needs. The Pécs Organ Manufactory is among the few businesses in Hungary’s South Transdanubian Region that brings benefit to the community at large and creates value in an internationally recognised segment. According to the company’s mission found in the submitted project documentation and on the business’ homepage and even according to the general opinion in the city of Pécs, it must be the innovative approach and sincerity of the Budavári brothers and their staff that hold the key to the company’s success, which has helped them to keep alive a 150-year-old tradition of a historical instrument, while responding to the challenges of new times.
Pécs Organ Manufactory Ltd
One of Hungary’s largest organ building workshops with a European acclaim employs highly trained professionals who know every aspect of this historical vocation. The instruments that come out of the manufactory are all individually designed and thus perfectly tailored to the needs of the given church interior, concert hall, music school or chapel where they are installed. The handicraft traditions and 21st-century instrument making technologies are combined in the new type of box organ, which took three years to develop. The light and compact portable organ unites the traditional features of the instrument with innovative solutions. It has a modular structure,
i.e. it does not follow a single style of a single period in the history of music but a combination of numerous organ sounds can be played on it thanks to its optional ranks. These various styles and unique musical configurations can be played separately and simultaneously.
Design thinking is manifest in the operation of the Pécs Organ Manufactory in its joint application of innovation and existing knowledge, as well as in the way they connect design elements with business factors to make a profit and create value.
WAMP Sunday Design Market / Vásárnap Ltd
Jury statement:
WAMP has been fulfilling a long-needed cultural and economic mission for more than a decade functioning as a regular platform providing representational and business opportunities for a narrow yet all the more diverse segment of the domestic design scene. With the new market movement having made headway in the past decades in Hungary too, it was realised that a complicated bureaucratic approach should be replaced by markets where values are created and direct contact can be established with consumers, not only making the exchange of goods economically more efficient but also acting as a space of cultural mediation. This is especially true for markets specialised in the trade of unique and small series design and handicraft objects, where the items themselves are cultural products. Thanks to its significant attitude-shaping influence on visitors, WAMP brings indirect benefits for the entire design profession. Another valuable advantage is extending the initiative into the international scene and thus helping Hungarian designers to exploit opportunities abroad, while greatly contributing to the international visibility of Hungarian design. Over the years the high standard and consistent communication of the company and its services as well as its visual identity have transformed the project, which started out much like a movement, into a strong brand. The solid presence of WAMP on the Hungarian design scene is appreciated as an important value, while providing a popular and powerful alternative to the reduced palette of shopping malls.
WAMP Sunday DESIGN Art Market / VÁSÁRNAP LTD
WAMP (Vasárnapi Művész Piac, i.e. Sunday Art Market) has been organising design fairs for almost one and a half decades, providing Hungarian artists with the opportunity to present their own individual small series products. These fairs, typically held on Sundays, also function as real communal experiences as designers and customers, creative professionals and laymen with an interest in design, can meet in an informal setting. Moreover, as a kind of umbrella organisation WAMP is working hard to connect the domestic creative industry with the international design scene. Participating in international projects, it presents Hungarian artists abroad and foreign ones in Hungary, and it has been present in the area in front of the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna’s city centre with permanent fairs since 2014. Today its membership has thousands of designers and artists.
Since its foundation, WAMP has been an initiator of raising awareness about the artistic, economic and social potentials of design. It is committed to bringing design closer to the general public, while building relations between stakeholders in the design innovation and economic sectors. As one of Hungary’s largest and longest-standing private design initiatives, WAMP pays special attention to promoting social responsibility and value creation.oduct range for years as the brand does not change its collections from one season to the next.
Ykra Design Ltd
Jury statement:
YKRA is an exciting design-centred family business specialised in unique backpacks and accessories in bright colours made by hand using excellent raw materials, such as Italian leather, Czech linen and Hungarian fittings.
The founders, Balázs Lakatos and Judit Balogh, are a young couple running the business together and managing the YKRA brand in an exemplary fashion.
Their products, which they themselves distribute, are distinguished by high quality, an international standard and a unified design consciousness coupled with an outstanding communication strategy.
In order to ensure sustainability, YKRA has a permanent product range, thus setting themselves apart from the seasonality dominating the fashion industry. Twice a year their products feature the patterns of up-and-coming designers, thus helping them to promote their work. In order to increase their competitiveness and respond to the changing markets, the company started to expand its palette and debuted with five new products last year, creating its sub-brand YKRA KIDS specifically for children.
Besides playing an important role on the Hungarian market, YKRA has also sought to increase its exports, and now they work with more than seventy distributors abroad from New York to Seoul. Their main markets include Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Spain; moreover, their brand is included in the product range of prominent design and concept shops such as the Conran Shop, the Voo Store and the Galeries Lafayette. Their international expansion is enhanced by their participation in trade shows and cooperation with foreign brands (Henrik Vibskov, LF Markey, Bobo Choses).
YKRA’s continuous product development efforts and their successful strategy are confirmed by the record sales of their new products.
It is the contention of the jury that YKRA’s distinct identity, coherent online and social media presence, their high quality marketing materials, the forms of their products as well as the design thinking evident in their entire business model contribute to the success and development of the company, while their strategic approach sets an inspiring example for Hungarian small enterprises.
YKRA Design Ltd
This enterprise growing and prospering based on its own initiative, efforts and creativity is a real love brand carrying out its work by following clearly defined values. YKRA not only designs and manufactures bags but also mediates an attitude to life. Its products are inspired by the colours and forms of the hiking backpacks one of YKRA’s founders saw during his childhood years in Yugoslavia and which are familiar and evoke nostalgia in many people. This visual world is easy to love by those who see it for the first time. The characteristically Eastern European style products were initially made from monochrome materials and over the years the collection was expanded with limited series with printed patterns linked to themes typical of hiking developed through the collaboration of young graphic designers, illustrators and designers. The fundamental values of the brand include sustainability, which does not stop at the use of high quality materials and careful implementation. YKRA provides repair services for its products, thus their bags can be used longer. Certain popular models stay in the product range for years as the brand does not change its collections from one season to the next.
