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Collab is a collaboration of design professionals supporting the modern and contemporary design collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A volunteer committee founded in 1970, Collab is dedicated to enriching the Museum’s collections with outstanding examples of mass-produced and unique designs, and to making the collections accessible to the general public, students, and the design community. Now among the most important in the country, the design collections of more than 2,000 objects range from appliances and furniture to ceramics, glass, posters, wallpapers, and lighting.

Collab supports a wide range of educational programming at the Museum, including exhibitions, publications, lectures, symposia, and a citywide, college-level Student Design Competition, as well as a distinguished annual Design Excellence Award. Collab also supports focused installations that showcase the work of their Design Excellence Award recipients—design professionals who have made a significant contribution to the field. Past honorees include Florence Knoll Bassett, Milton Glaser, Michael Graves, Richard Meier, Karim Rashid, George Nakashima, Gaetano Pesce, and Philippe Starck.

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Collab Design Excellence Award

Photograph by Clint Blowers

Each year, the Design Excellence Award is presented by Collab to a design professional who has made a significant contribution to the field.

The award itself, of silver and laser-etched rubber, was designed by Kate Reynolds in 2001 and is fabricated for Collab each year by jewlery designer Maria Eife. Reynolds was a sophomore in Philadelphia University’s Industrial Design program when she entered the 2001 Student Design Competition, Designing The Design Excellence Award. Of her project, she said, "This award is meant to symbolize the continuity of design. Its shape reflects the endless relationship between past, present, and future.”

The elegance of her thinking touched that year's judges and the Collab group so deeply that it has been adopted as an element symbolic of Collab's mission, binding them to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Past recipients of this prestigious award >>

The Student Design Competition

The Collab Student Design Competition is a remarkable annual event held in conjunction with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The competition brief is always linked thematically to that year's Collab Design Excellence Award recipient. For the past twenty years, the event has been an exceptional opportunity for students to experience the rigors of competition and have industry leaders from around the world judge their work. In addition, students interact with colleagues from other universities and institutions, exposing them to an array of design approaches.

Previous Competitions >>

2012: Game On!

First Place: Lou Stuber
Are We There Yet?!
Tyler School of Art/Temple University
The concept behind Are We There Yet?! is loosely based off of family road trips that I have experienced with my own family across the country. Things never seem to go exactly according to schedule when you are on a road trip. The object of the game is to end up at your final destination, Shallow Waters, with the most money left to enjoy your stay at the world’s best water park.
About the 2012 Competition: Collab held its Twentieth Annual College Student Design Competition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, November 19, 2012. The competition was held in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Double Portrait: Paula Scher and Seymour Chwast, Graphic Designers celebrating the innovative graphic design work of Paula Scher and Seymour Chwast—recipients of Collab’s 2012 Design Excellence Award.
2010 Judges: Drew Freeman, Byron Glaser, Patti Ann Harris, Bonnie Mackay, Larry Mangel
2011: OverNighter

First Place: Silvia Terhedebrugge
Under Cover
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY, Industrial Design
Faculty Advisors: Katrin Mueller- Russo
About the 2011 Competition: Collab held its Nineteenth Annual College Student Design Competition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, November 14, 2011. The competition was held in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion celebrating the innovative designs of Zaha Hadid, the recipient of Collab’s 2011 Design Excellence Award.
2011 Judges: Kirsten Climer, John Edelman, Victor Sanz, Susan Szenasy, Janet Villano
2010: Tabletop Accessory Set

First Place: James Read Hughes
Flow Series
University of the Arts
Industrial Design
Professors: Doug Bucci and Daniel Michalik

In this series of dipping plates for oil and vinegar, each porcelain dish is mass-producible and uses only one material. A humanistic and whimsical aspect is introduced into each design in the form of a relief at the plate’s bottom, which uses the natural properties of each liquid to create a sublime pattern that reveals itself during use.
About the 2010 Competition: Collab held its Eighteenth Annual College Student Design Competition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, November 15, 2010. The competition was held in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Alessi: Ethical and Radical celebrating the innovative products of the Italian manufacturer, Alberto Alessi - recipient of Collab’s 2010 Design Excellence Award.
2010 Judges: Harry Allen, Carla Diana, Richard Kratchman, Diane Minnite, Diane O’Donnel
2009: Tabletop Luminaire

First Place Winner: Jordan Cammarata
“Pull” Lamp
Philadelphia University
Industrial Design
Professors: Mark Havens and Jason Lempieri
A contemporary interpretation of Harvey Hubbell’s pull chain socket, patented in 1896.
About the 2009 Competition: Collab held its Seventeenth Annual Student Design Competition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, November 16, 2009. This year’s competition was held in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Marcel Wanders: Daydreams celebrating the innovative design work of the Dutch designer, the recipient of Collab’s 2009 Design Excellence Award.
2009 Judges: Dennis Askins, Russell Blanchard, Lisa Foley, Jamer Hunt, David Raizman, Gina Reimann
2008: Processing Frank Gehry

First Place Winner: Jesse Gerard
The University of the Arts
Industrial Design
Professor: Dan Michalik

The layered plywood technique widely associated with Frank Gehry is adapted to design and produce the Lewis Bench.

About the 2008 Competition: Collab held its Sixteenth Annual Student Design Competition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, November 3, 2008, in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition, Frank O. Gehry: Design Process and the Lewis House, devoted to the architecture and design of Frank Gehry, Collab’s 2008 Design Excellence Award recipient. Students were asked to consider the way Frank Gehry experiments with forms and materials as part of his creative process.
2008 Judges: Lewis Wexler, Anthony Bracali, Jack Larimore, Stephan Copeland, and Linda O’Keeffe
2007: Mapping Modernism

First Place Winner: Yesenia Perez-Cruz
A. Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, Drexel University, Graphic Design
Professor Jody Graff
The Development of Modern Seats
No other household object is as emblematic of Modernist ideals as the chair. The chair can be mass-produced, sold globally, and is a subject of experimentation with technology and materials. These qualities are exhibited in a vast, white showroom, faithful to the Modernist ideology that an interior space should be "open and free-flowing." Upon entering the exhibit, the viewer was met with a large-scale banner showing line illustrations of chairs. The chairs were not arranged chronologically, but are grouped by similarity of line, demonstrating that development of chairs is about refinement and reinvention of pre-existing forms. The similarities existing between chairs created decades apart demonstrates the immense influence of Modernist techniques and ideals.
About the 2007 Competition: Collab’s Fifteenth Annual Student Competition, Mapping Modernism, was held in conjunction with the celebration of Collab's new gallery in the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building and its opening exhibition, Designing Modern: 1920 to the Present. This year, students were asked to consider the scope of the Modern Design dialogue.
The competition challenged students to design a "Map" that links associations between people, things, or events within the context of the revolutionary ideas and trends in art, architecture, and design that developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The map should communicate the student’s interpretation of the forces that flowed into, through and around modern design, giving shape to its origins and output.
2007 Judges: Conny Purtill, Erin Mulchay, Dana Micucci, Julie Hirschfeld, and Jason Alger
2006: The Intelligent Ornament

First Place Winner: Miho Wakabayashi
Pratt Institute, Industrial Design
Professor Katrin Mueller

Miho's project examines ornament in the tabletop context and celebrates Jensen's aesthetic through organic motif and structural pattern making. The bowl's hidden intelligence is the application of a unique electrostatic coating on the interior. This silvery heat-retaining material allows the bread to be kept warm long after the basket is moved from the oven to the table.
About the 2006 Competition: Collab's Fourteenth Annual Student Design Competition, The Intelligent Ornament, was part of a week-long series of events celebrating Collab's 2006 Design Excellence Award recipient, Georg Jensen and Georg Jensen, Inc. It posed the question: If Jensen were alive today, what objects might he be moved to create?
The competition challenged students to design a physical model and supporting presentation board for their “Intelligent Ornament.” A distinguished panel of judges used both in measuring the overall success of each entry.
2006 Judges: Clive Roux, Virgil Marti, Barbara Flanagan, Monique Faber, Maria Eife
2005: Variance and The Vase

First Place Winner: Brett Duncan
University of The Arts, Industrial Design
Professor Rama Korposh
Brett Duncan's Ice Bloom consisted of flowers frozen in a sphere of ice which blossom and expand as the ice around them melts. Also embedded in the ice sculpture are glass beads which become apparent as the ice melts and they drop sporadically onto the surface the vase melts on. The gentle, occasional sound produced by the dropping beads reminds us of the fleeting quality of the vase. Here, variance is produced in a temporal event which one of our judges likened to a performance.
About the 2005 Competition: The 2005 competition brief reflected the richness of Collab Design Excellence Award recipient Gaetano Pesce’s contribution to design through his unique approach. By combining elements of art, design, philosophy, and technology, Mr. Pesce has encouraged the wondrous and accidental, embracing imperfections as traits which enhance and humanize his work. Applying this philosophy to design for production has been referred to as “variance.”
Students interpreted this concept in their development of a full-scale functional prototype of a flower vase. Winning designs demonstrated variance in both philosophy and in manufacturing strategy.
2005 Judges: Laetitia Wolff, Senior Design Editor, SURFACE Magazine; Lyn Godley, Designer; Adam Kamens, CEO, Amuneal Metal Forms Inc.; Mark Gisi, Director of Sales and Marketing, Amuneal Metal Forms Inc.; Drew Hamilton, Owner, Dane Décor Downtown.
2004: Furniture Classics for The Future

2003: Main Exterior Signage for The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new Perelman Building acquisition
2002: Paper Lighting
2001: Designing The Design Excellence Award
2000: CD Box Set Packaging
1999: Clock for The New Milennium
1998: Shopping Bag for the Terrence Conran Home Furnishing Collection
1997: Ice Bucket for Starck/Schrager Mondrian Hotel
1996: Chair or Seating Unit for the Richard Meier Museum in Ulm, Germany
1995: Tea Kettle
1994: Lighting Fixture with Japanese Influence
1993: Dinnerware Place Setting

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