red dot: junior prize goes to Dennis Dominguez

Junior prize supports young talent and sets impulses for tomorrow’s design economy

The book “Stereotypes” deals with the topic of prejudices and national stereotypes. It follows Allport’s insight that prejudiced people perceive others – this “other” here means of different gender, profession, nationality or religion – not as individual persons, but as mere representations of a group defined through certain clichés. In an entertaining, yet profound approach, the book shows how quotes and rumours from around the world are shaped by specific images of different national archetypes and how these get stuck in our heads. Backed up by quotes from famous politicians, writers and the press, the book gets to the heart of 20 different caricatures of national stereotypes by presenting them through boldly stylised illustrations. In its reduced use of colours, the illustrations convey the topic in a consistent and direct pictorial language.

About the winner Dennis Dominguez
Dennis Dominguez studied communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund, Germany, before working for different agencies such as the Peter Schmidt Group, Claus Koch Identity, Interbrand, and the desres design group in Frankfurt on the Main. He learned all about the topic of his degree dissertation right from the cradle, so to speak, even though he refers to himself as a genuine native of Cologne. But as the son of a Slovenian mother and a Spanish father he grew up with the typical attributions, how one nation sees the other and vice versa. At a later stage he had the opportunity to deepen his “research” on the subject among foreign guest students at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana making the interesting experience that on a world map of national stereotypes every ethnic group should be charged with similar offences. “We all are full of prejudices and need them for classification,” says Dennis Dominguez in an interview with red dot. “The fact that we always talk about why prejudices are bad with a wagging finger became one of the keys to portraying them as caricatures.”

About the red dot: junior prize
With the competition red dot offers budding designers an outstanding platform for having the quality of their works judged and presenting them. “Since creativity and sound know-how are no longer sufficient to start a successful career, young designers need the opportunity to compete on an international stage and have the quality of their works accessed by an independent expert jury,” explains Professor Dr. Peter Zec, initiator of the red dot design award and Senator of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid). In addition, winning an award in the “red dot award: communication design”, one of the most important and largest design competitions in the industry, secures the fledgling designers the attention of a wide public.