ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Nordic Young Designers Network (NYDN) brings design students from the Nordic countries; design and art academies; student organisations; design professionals; and design enthusiasts together on the platform Graduates.Design. The pilot project was launched successfully in 2021 as an initiative of ADORNO and the support of the Nordic Culture Point. 

The network was launched to bridge the collaboration gap among Nordic universities. Following the completion of key project activities in 2021 and 2022, NYDN now aims to strengthen and expand its initiatives in the coming years, enhancing opportunities for Nordic students and showcasing their talents on a global stage. To this end, ADORNO has launched ADORNO Non-Profit. This initiative collaborates with partners in education, design, and craft to inspire design students and facilitate knowledge sharing, fostering learning experiences that contribute to a sustainable future.

The goal of the project is to enhance interaction and collaboration across the Nordic region, creating synergies that accelerate the learning process and foster partnerships among design students and stakeholders, including design schools, departments, cultural institutions, design studios, and companies. The platform Graduates.design works as the hub to foster dialogue and debate on design topics that resonate not only in the nordic region, but also globally.

Through the platform:

  • Students present and communicate their work: The NYDN platform allows Nordic design students to share and discuss both work-in-progress and completed projects using multimedia, fostering peer feedback, advice, and insights to support their academic and professional growth.
  • Students showcase their work and build professional Networks: Students have personal showrooms for promoting their work, while the platform includes features similar to Behance, Instagram, and LinkedIn to facilitate engagement. Students can build professional relationships with organizations, which can also post collaboration opportunities and advertise for design-related positions.
  • Students participate in collaborative Forums and Seminars: NYDN hosts specialized forums each semester, created in collaboration with stakeholders, to explore design topics or challenges. Students can participate as active members or observers, with forums culminating in presentations of findings. Webinars are key elements of the forum experience.
  • Students are eligible to win the New Nordic Designer Award: Students’ projects on the platform are automatically entered into a competition judged by a jury of design experts. Winning projects are highlighted through video features and showcased at prominent events like the annual 3 Days of Design exhibition in Copenhagen.

NYDN aims to create lasting value by uniting the five Nordic design sectors, fostering knowledge-sharing, and enhancing Nordic identity and design as a global brand. ADORNO Non-Profit and its partners envision NYDN evolving beyond 2025-2028 into a widely-used platform for Nordic design students, schools, and stakeholders, and a key international design reference.

To promote the project, ADORNO Non-Profit has assembled a board of five prominent design professionals and established a Secretariat responsible for organizing and managing NYDN activities. The NYDN Secretariat supports the Board and Jury, manages the platform and awards, organizes project exhibitions, and facilitates forums to promote collaboration among Nordic universities.

MEET THE SECRETARIAT

Teresa Hernández is a graphic designer with a focus on marketing, communication, and sustainability topics. She holds a Master’s degree in International Media Cultural Work from Hochschule Darmstadt, in Germany, focusing on interculturality, curation and promotion of cultural projects. She was the project manager of the pilot project of the Nordic Young Designers Network, fostering collaboration between design schools in the Nordic countries.

Pil Bredahl is a graduate of Product and Furniture Design from The Danish Design School and holds a Master’s in Design Theory (2013), with a focus on design and sustainability. With a background in experimental and political design projects, she co-founded FairTradeDesigners.com in 2007, advocating for sustainable development. Bredahl has leveraged design as a tool for the integration of immigrant women and serves on several influential platforms, including the jury of the Danish Design Award, the board of Design Denmark, and as a representative at Designmuseum Danmark. She was also a jury member during the pilot phase of NYDN. Currently, Pil contributes as a jury member on the TV show Danmarks Næste Klassiker on DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation).

Kristian Snorre Andersen is the co-founder and CEO of Adorno.design, a leading global online gallery for collectible design and craft. Previously, he worked as a researcher and policy advisor for the Danish Ministry of Environment and the Wuppertal Institute in Germany, focusing on sustainable markets. He holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from Aarhus University and the Philipp University of Marburg in Germany.

ABOUT ADORNO NON-PROFIT

ADORNO Non-Profit collaborates with partners in education, design, and craft to inspire design students and share knowledge, fostering learning processes that contribute to a sustainable future. Founded in 2023, ADORNO Non-Profit is an expert organization specializing in design, craft, and digital solutions.

ABOUT THE PILOT PROJECT - 2021

The Nordic Young Designers Network (NYDN) brings design students from the Nordic countries; design and art academies; student organisations; design professionals; and design enthusiasts together on the platform Graduates.Design. The project is an initiative of ADORNO and is supported by Nordic Culture Point. 

Graduates.design showcases graduation projects produced in 2021 – both bachelor’s and master’s – by designers who graduated from academies in the Nordic region and makes them accessible to an international audience. The aim of the project is to increase public interest in the work of emerging designers and provide the platform’s designer members an opportunity to create a valuable network for their professional life. The focus of the project is design and craft objects for interiors, including furniture, lighting, and decoration.

WHY IS IT RELEVANT?

Graduation projects are often used as a stepping stone for designers to start their professional careers at companies or at their own studios. Through the Nordic Young Designers Network, graduation projects are promoted to an international audience, increasing the possibilities of emerging talents to connect with the industry or create meaningful connections with other designers that can lead to further collaborations.

The project encourages dialogue and debate about the future of design and craft across the Nordics, and it also showcases the talent that the Nordic academies are forming to a global audience. 

WHO IS PART OF THE NETWORK?

The collaboration includes graduate students, Nordic art and design academies, and Adorno International Design Collaboration.

For 2021, the following Nordic design schools are participating in the network:

In the future, the project will expand the network, inviting more academies and Nordic design associations.

A PLATFORM BY ADORNO

ADORNO is a digital gallery for the best of collectible design and craft from around the globe. Selected by a network of on-the-ground curators in major design cities, ADORNO’S collections provide a unique insight into the world’s diverse creative communities – and celebrate the work of the designers shaping them.

Each collection showcases only unique or limited-edition contemporary works, spanning the fields of furniture, textiles, ceramics, sculpture and design-art. The curatorial approach varies from collection to collection – just as design culture varies from community to community – but every object featured is contemporary in style, experimental in approach, and exceptional in material quality.

The designers featured include both established names and emerging talents at the cusp of their careers, ensuring each collection is a snapshot of the people, techniques, styles and thinking that define the modern making culture of each region. With each collection launch, ADORNO adds a new chapter to the global design story.

In its essence the infrastructure of ADORNO includes the e-commerce platform, an international legal set up, and a global cost efficient shipping solution that enables autonomous collaboration between curators and designers to promote their work, and transact with a growing segment of international buyers. Besides running the online platform, ADORNO exhibits at major design events worldwide.