VIRTU is the organizer of POPAI STUDENT DESIGN AWARDS.

The third time the results of POPAI STUDENT DESIGN AWARDS were summed up. This is the contest for future designers and a part of traditional POPAI RUSSIA AWARDS. Firstly POPAI STUDENT DESIGN AWARDS was held in 2011 when there wasn’t a single brief for the students. But since last year all participants prepare their design projects on a single brief by analogy with Concept nomination. For the second year in a row student’s competition is supported by world famous company Ferrero and the entire organization is taken over by VIRTU. 

To inform future professionals about POS-market is very important for the entire industry and our company has always taken an active part in POPAI activities. That is why VIRTU Chairman Vladimir Itkin one and half years ago suggested our internal resources to organize a competition among future designers.

Before the contest of this year we sent invitations to many designer high schools. After it we held presentations about the specifics of POS-materials for future contestants.

The contest had several stages: on the first stage the best works were selected and the short-list was formed. And then the authors of selected projects produced real displays at our production site.

A year ago there were doubts as quality of work would be. One of the conditions of the competition is that all displays are produced without the use of specialized equipment. It’s allowed to use only knives, scissors and rulers (the only help was printing images). It is worth  noting that the majority of students of design specialties are young girls. This year we were sure  that all displays would be a good quality despite the fact that it was necessary to produce big Kinder pallet decorations.

This year many organizational moments were simple for us: after all the experience of last year's competition had helped greatly. 

It should be noted that the student competition is very representative. This year we received 44 design projects for the brief of Kinder.

Winners were determined in three versions: the jury, VIRTU as the organizer of the contest and Ferrero announced the best projects. On April, 16 during the awarding ceremony the prizes of the 3rd POPAI STUDENT DESIGN AWARDS contest found their lucky owners.

This year VIRTU top three was fully in line with the opinion of the jury.

Svetlana Minaeva (Plekhanov Russian University of Economics) won 1st place.

Anna Gorskaya (MGHPU named after Stroganov) - 2nd place.

Nina Nechaeva (MGHPU named after Stroganov) – 3rd place.

For the second year in a row VIRTU presented to winners a symbolic prize in the shape of designer tool (a pencil).