Ever searching for fresh new design talent across South Africa, Carrol Boyes Functional Art (CBFA) has announced the theme for the Metal 2008 New Designer Search: Frame.

Metal is the fourth annual New Designer Search pioneered by Carrol Boyes Functional Art to discover and nurture new product design talent in South Africa. Metal invites aspirant designers to submit a prototype based on a specific theme.

Key elements of design

Inspired by originality, freshness and creativity, the theme for Metal changes every year. Entrants are bound only by their own creativity to fuse three key design elements: functionality, manufacturability and aesthetics.

Organisers of this year's initiative invite aspirant product designers to create a prototype of a frame — a structure that can contain or border any article of beauty such as a mirror, an artwork, an image, an item of jewellery or the like.

Carrol Boyes, arguably one of South Africa's most commercially successful product designers, explains her choice of theme: "A frame may hold a special memory, reflect a shared moment or simply contain a gift from someone close. I would like to encourage entrants to be inspired by these moments whilst designing and creating their prototypes so that these may reflect their uniqueness. I hope the theme inspires designers to create something completely original in form."

Want to enter?

CBFA officially opens entries on 1 March 2008. The deadline for all prototypes will be the 31 May 2008.

No particular experience or design qualification is necessary in order to enter. Entrants simply have to design an innovative and functional frame, make a three-dimensional example of their design, and submit it along with a completed entry form, a copy of their ID and a one page CV to Carrol Boyes Functional Art.

In order to maximise their chances of winning, designers are encouraged to produce work that can viably be manufactured in aluminium, stainless steel or pewter (the metals that CBFA manufactures in). However, prototypes submitted can be made of any material that is available to the artist, ranging from wood, to ceramics, to plastic or even wire.

In terms of design, Boyes is looking for fresh and original design talent that is not derivative of her own design style.

Entry forms for Metal 2008 are available at Carrol Boyes stockists countrywide. To download an entry form, go to metal.carrolboyes.co.za. To have an entry form faxed to you, phone +27 21 462 3129.