DIGITAL SUPPORT: In light of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Prospect 100 Global Design Competition is inviting its worldwide pool of under-25 talents to take part in an emergency competition, opening Wednesday and running until March 26.
The brief is to create digital artwork inspired by 25 news sources. Winning entries will be donated to Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation so they can be sold as NFTs. Proceeds will go toward supporting the Ukrainian armed forces, currently engaged in war against Russia.
“[Our] cofounder Adam Flanagan had noticed a tweet from Vice President [Ivan] Fedorov about Ukraine releasing NFT artwork in order to raise funds for the armed forces,” said Prospect 100 cofounder Alexandre Daillance, who figured that the youth talent showcase’s global network of creatives would be able to come up with high-quality artwork to support Ukraine.
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After intense email exchanges with the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Prospect 100 team was building an initiative that fits the needs and requests of the people they spoke to in Ukraine, from government officials to the “Ukrainian NFT artists’ community,” an organization supporting the ministry in this initiative.
The jury was likewise assembled in the space of 24 hours, with members hailing from the wider creative community, including artists Daniel Arsham, Andre Saraiva, Millinsky and Caitlyn Grabenstein; designer Hiroshi Fujiwara; graphic designers David Carson and Stefan Sagmeister; Galerie Perrotin founder Emmanuel Perrotin; social media stars DudeWithSign and F–kJerry, and Comme des Garçons president and Dover Street Market cofounder Adrian Joffe.
For Saraiva, the Prospect 100 for Ukraine competition and all initiatives in support of Ukrainian people as well as stopping the war are “a duty that we all have as humans.”
Sagmeister added that he “always felt that good design is design that can help someone and design that can delight someone. Right now there is a big need for both, a big need for help and a big need for delight. I would think that even the smallest effort that might contribute to reign this aggression in would be helpful,” he wrote in an email.
Organizers hope for a large number of entries and called for creatives to “take a moment of their time to create something amazing” in support of Ukraine, said Prospect 100’s third cofounder Harry Beard.