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DesignNewswire · COMO, Italy ·

Lu Zhao Is Honored with the Silver A' Design Award for Plastic Book in Print and Published Media Design

Lu Zhao honored for print and published media design by the international grand jury of the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 23, 2021 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Silver A' Design Award in the Print and Published Media Design category for Plastic Book by Lu Zhao. The award was conferred within the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

About the Silver A' Design Award

The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.

About Plastic Book

Plastic is a handmade book made from waste plastic instead of paper. Discarded plastic bags and other used plastics are collected and cut by hand into pages. The text and the stickers imitate children's brushstrokes, giving the pages a simple and innocent character. Ordinary glue does not bond plastic, so the pages are fixed with hot-melt plastic. The book measures 225 mm in width, 325 mm in depth and 10 mm in height. The intent is to reuse waste material and to raise awareness of plastic pollution.

Award Record

Lu Zhao is a winner of 4 A' Design Awards, including this recognition. The awards were granted in the 2020 - 2021 edition of the A' Design Award & Competition.

About the A' Print and Published Media Design Award

The A' Print Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good printed and published media by leading designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to print designers, published media designers, graphic designers and typography experts from all countries. Typical entries include brochures, posters, magazines, catalogs, flyers and business cards. The awarded print designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/print

About A' Design Award & Competition

Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project
Plastic Book
Function
Book
Category
Print and Published Media Design
Discipline
Communication Design
Industry
Branding & Advertising and Entertainment
Colors
Black, Slate Gray, Dark Slate Gray, Dark Khaki and Dim Gray
Images
5

The Recognition

Laureate
Lu Zhao
Country
China
Recognition
Silver A' Design Award
Edition
2020 - 2021
Design ID
#121418

Credits

Team
Ruhe Zhang, Lin Huang, Yijia Sun, Jiayi Shen and Baofeng Huang

Design Details

Unique Properties
How long will plastics stay with the world in the future and how much influence will it have on the future generations of the earth? This is a question worth pondering. We set out from this, using the waste plastics in our lives as materials, designing and cutting purely by hand, and made a unique "plastic book". In the book, we imitated children's handwriting to trigger a warning of plastic pollution to all mankind.
Inspiration
There are four courier spots around our school, and discarded plastic bags can be seen everywhere every day. When we found children chewing plastic bags around the express delivery point one day, we realized that the plastic pollution around us was very serious. So we came up with the idea of making plastic books. Such a book is not only the reuse of waste plastics, but also a way to remind people by means of brochures. Therefore, we adopted the theory of book design and picture books.
Research
This work mainly studies whether it is feasible to replace common paper book design with plastic. In the work, we study the book binding method for plastic, because plastic cannot be bonded by ordinary glue. If nails are used to fix it, it will increase the plastic Stability, so we use hot-melt plastic to fix it.
Challenge
The problem we have to face in design activities is the instability of plastics, because plastics present a soft texture, which is difficult to cut accurately by hand. Secondly, the methods we need to use contradict some rules of book design, and it is difficult to even tell that the work produced at the beginning is a book. Because we want to replace the most important material in book design, we need to make it with different textures of plastic to achieve a readable effect.
Realization and Technology
In this design, the text and stickers are made by imitating children's brushstrokes, and the manual is fully used to render a kind of innocence. On the other hand, waste plastics of various materials are used for cutting.
Operation and Interaction
Production process: research-collecting materials and production tools-cutting page size-content design planning-pasting production-binding into a book
Project Duration and Location
The project started in October 2019 in Dalian, Liaoning and finished in November 2019 in Dalian, Liaoning.
Specifications
Width 225mm x Depth 325mm x Height 10mm
Keywords
plastic,book design,handmade,pollution,environmental protection

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