A limited-edition shiny object, inspired by the Möbius Strip
For the second year in a row, Archiproducts has chosen MUT to design the trophy for the 2018 edition of the Archiproducts Design Awards. A limited-edition object, inspired by the Möbius Strip, that mimics the typical shape of the Archiproducts Design Award logo and plays with both light and surface.
Eduardo Villalón ed Alberto Sánchez di MUT Design
“Last year, when we were first contacted by Archiproducts to entrust us with the task of designing the ADA 2017 trophy, we felt so honoured. When they contacted us again this year, we also felt proud for that meant our previous work had pleased them and they were willing to repeat the experience. And so we were too. Willing and ready to create a new exciting object up to their expectations”.
These are the first impressions of the young Spanish designers interviewed by Archiproducts. And this is how it went. All expectations have been met. The object they created as prize trophy for the ADA 2018, and available in a limited edition, perfectly transcribes the message it was meant to communicate.
While the ADA 2017 played with anamorphic figures and the concept of perspective illusion, this time they were asked to transmit the power of the brand-designer connection in a very simple, visual way.
In the words of Enzo Maiorano, Archiproducts Co-founder and Art director: “We wanted to honor this edition’s winners with a meaningful object, a trophy able to fully express the Award’s identity and values. Two surfaces blending into one with no boundaries: this is how we feel about the collaboration between brands and designers and this is the way we want to express it”.
MUT Design | Archiproducts – Agustina Prado Vecchi ed Enzo Maiorano
The inspiration was the Möbius Strip, an out-of-this-world topological space with an endless artistic potential.
“In a Möbius Strip, up becomes down, in becomes out, you walk and walk around its two-dimensional surface and end up where you started. Its math is so complicated to grasp as it is fascinating. Like this famous strip, the ADA trophy was conceived as a seamless object: a single metal slab, crafted to reproduce the Award concept”.
They took design back to basics, and tried to make it as simple and yet as appealing as possible. The result is a game of light and shadows, of full and empty spaces, of glossy and raspy finishings.
All this went also into the making of the video directed by the artist Andrés Reisinger. Every shot is meticulously focused on a single detail of the object, thus emphasizing the tiny flaws that reveal the manual element that shaped its very forms. This is meant to convey the feeling of physically holding the object, to feel the metal, its weight and temperature.
