Design Indaba Superstars

As a celebration of the innate creativity in our country, the Design Indaba 2010 "Let It Out!" campaign asked every South African from every walk of life and every age to express their creativity online. The competition sought 11 individuals to represent our national creative team, the Design Indaba Superstars.

During December 2009 and January 2010, the public were asked to “Let It Out!” and over 400 entries were submitted online. Judging took place in February to select 10 team members and shortlist 25 entries for the Peoples Choice SMS-voted 11th winner.

The judging panel included: sports personality and design student, Percy Montgomery; MD of Grid advertising agency, Nathan Reddy; fine artist Nandipha Mntambo; and design director of Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town, Joanne Thomas.

For the judging process, all five judges were given a scoring sheet and all the entries were numbered on the sheets. They were briefed on the judging criteria prior to scoring the entries. The criteria were:

• How well the entrant answered the brief conceptually, making the use of a creative idea to fully express their individuality.
• How innovative the entry was when it comes to the way in which the entrant has crafted and depicted their artwork.
• How strong the quality of the entry's execution was, taking into account the entrant's background and the creative expertise they have to draw on.

On the scoring sheet they had to rate each entry a score between 1 and 10. They scored a serious contender 8-10; a possible contender 5-7 and a not a chance contender 1-4. Once the scoring round had been completed, scores were tallied and the finalists taken from that list. The finalists were discussed by the judges and the 10 individuals were picked for the team.

The judges also then selected the 20 contenders for the public to choose the 11th team member from, along with the top five online voted entries.