"Don´t wait for your ship to come in -

swim out to it."

It is one of the greatest challenges for most young designers: making the transition from the safe haven of the universities and design schools out into the "real" world - a veritable shark pool, to some - of industry employment.

It is difficult to make general statements about design education today. The participants to the Faces of Design TALENT Awards come from 19 different countries, and their education will have differed tremendously. We know that some schools are academically minded ivory towers that are perfect playgrounds for creative design experiments; other schools foster collaboration with industry players very early on.

However, no matter which school a student attended, one thing that really makes a difference is attitude. Not an attitude of creative freedom - which is really one of the most basic hygiene criteria for young designers entering the job market today - but instead an attitude of initiative. The willingness to push yourself beyond boundaries of familiarity, of grabbing opportunities as they present themselves, and making the most of them.

In the first round of the competition, the participants of the Faces of Design TALENT Awards were asked to submit their three strongest projects to showcase their skills. But really the challenge was a different one: to take action. To assess one´s work from a new angle - the angle of employability.

So we applaud the winners of the first Faces of Design TALENT Awards not only for their success in a tough competition, but also for taking that leap into the cold waters of public critique.

They have mustered up the courage of shouting their names, alongside their work, into the world.

However, looking at these six young designers, we are pretty sure they will find the waters neither too cold nor particularly unfriendly - on the contrary, we are certain it won´t be the last we hear of them. We hope you will enjoy looking at their work as much as we have enjoyed creating this opportunity for them!

With all our best regards from Berlin,

Anna & Friedrich

Please click on one of the images below for an enlarged view!

Have a look at the digital publication introducing the winners of the Faces of Design TALENT Awards 2010 to press and industry:

(Click here to download the publication as a pdf.)

Thank you all very much for participating,

and for your many encouraging notes, questions and tremendously helpful feedback! We are very much looking forward to creating more opportunities like this for you in the future - please keep in touch and let us know how you´re doing!