DESIGN
THE 2020 AMPERA

An interactive competition for design students in Europe.

The competition is now closed

The deadline for final submissions was Friday 11th May. The judging has now taken place and the shortlisted students have been announced.

They will soon be invited to partake in the final phase of the competition, where they will further develop both their interior and exterior designs, guided by the expert eye of designers from Opel/Vauxhall (the  competition mentors).

The final judging will take place in early September, where the judges will gather together to choose their three finalists. The finalists will then be invited to the Paris motor show to see their work on display and to hear the winner announced.

The ultimate prize? A paid internship at Opel/Vauxhall's design studio is Russelsheim, Germany. There is still all to play for, no one student is clearly out in front. Good luck to the shortlisted students!

You can read more about the competition below...

Hear what Mark Adams, Vice President Opel/Vauxhall Design
has to say about the competition...

Who we are

The Car Design News - Opel/Vauxhall Interactive Design Competition is a collaboration between Car Design News and Opel/Vauxhall. We are inviting design students from Europe to partake in an online, interactive design competition, to be in with a chance of winning multiple internships on offer.

Competition time frame

Who could enter?

The competition was open to any student sudying at college/university level, enrolled in any design course at any school/college/university in Europe.

Entering the competition

Opel/Vauxhall set one brief: 'Design the 2020 Ampera'.

Students needed to sumit both an interior entry AND an exterior entry in order to be conisdered in the judging process. Both entries were sumitted separately but they could work on both at the same time.

The website was designed for students to upload thoughts, sketches, ideas and designs as they went along. Entrants could go back to their work at any stage to build on/ amend your entry. 

Judges, mentors and other students and designers who registered for an account could comment and provide feedback throughout the competition. We encouraged students to upload entries as their thinking developed - the development process is one of the crucial aspects in the judging process.

Reading the brief

We have found in previous competitions, that those students who have studied and produced work which directly answers the brief, or develops themes that the brief outlines, have been most successful. We know it's tempting to jump right in and just start up loading sketchwork, but remember, the judges and mentors will be looking not just at what you produce in the end, but how you develop your work.

What we wanted to see

The judges and mentors were looking for first class work, which develops innovative, exciting and well-presented new ideas which answers the specific requirements of the brief. In judging each entry, special consideration will be made of how your work has developed and how you took
on board advice from judges, mentors and other commentators.

Social community

This was an open, online competition, which was held in the spirit of the web, where data and information were shared and exchanged with ease, and where people could come together to collaborate. In this spirit, the judges were looking to see the contribution students made within the wider online community and how they help their competition peers. We advised students to engage in dialogue with those who commented
upon their work, and where they made changes to their design based on feedback they received, to illustrate how and why this is so.

Students were also free to register a competition account and comment on the work that had been submitted, without submitting a design entry themselves.

Judges and mentors

Opel/Vauxhall and our competition partners assigned judges and mentors to the competition. You can find details of judges and mentors at the bottom of the page by clicking on their photos. Look out for tips from the top blogs, and comments, particularly from the mentors, whose focus was to guide students and help develop their work.