Graniph have announced the winners of their second annual design award. Young creatives from around the globe were encouraged to submit designs to the Japanese T-shirt company in the hope of seeing their work put into production. I spoke to Melanie Feindt, Art Director of Graniph.

Dazed Digital: Last year the response was fantastic, how was the competition received this time?
Melanie Feindt: In only two months, we received about 15,000 designs from over 50 countries and all continents of the world. The packages and envelopes filled more and more boxes over the application time. It was amazing and exciting for all of us at the HQ in Tokyo.

DD: How many designs are chosen, and what makes a design special?
MF: One gold winner, ten silver and twenty bronze winners. We picked the ones that were suitable for the Graniph collection, i.e. strong but simple as with the Gold Winner, funny and cute, or pop and colorful. The difficulty was in finding a nice balance of all criteria.

DD: This year's winner seems to fall into the "cute" category. Was the panel evenly split between male and female?
MF: Everyone loved the Gold Prize design by Cho Jo Tzu from Taiwan. She is in her early twenties and the jury was touched by the simplicity, but strong expression of the bunnies that form the words "Peace" and "Love". All the other designs found fans among the jury and it was very hard to place the border between silver and bronze prizes.

DD: What happens with the winning designs?
MF: All winning designs will be produced for the Graniph store, and are available until they are sold out!

The winning T-shirts can be purchased online from July 5th.