German designer, Bruno Everling has been named the £5,000 winner of the eighth annual Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition, one of the top design contests in the world for up-and-coming designers.
Bombay Sapphire gin is instantly recognisable around the world thanks to its striking, translucent blue glass bottle design. It!s fitting then that each year thousands of emerging designers from around the world enter the Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition by designing a martini cocktail glass inspired by the distinctive blue bottle. In 2009, nine finalists have been selected for the global final of the Competition held as part of the London Design Festival.
Bruno, who is studying product design at the Schwabisch Gmund school of design near Stuttgart, was awarded the £5,000 prize for "Liquid Sapphire," a glass design which he says was inspired by the "timeless elegance" of Bombay Sapphire and its "fusion of tradition and modernity".
The judges described the winning design as: "a very beautiful, sophisticated glass" with "the potential to be a design classic". At first sight, the glass has a simple, beautifully faceted design but hidden from view, inside the stunning exterior is the classic conical shape of the martini cocktail glass.
The first prize was presented by world renowned designer, Yves Behar, at an awards ceremony held at the spiritual home of Bombay Sapphire, the Bombay Sapphire Blue Room in Bankside, London, where the finalists' martini cocktail glasses will be on display until Saturday, 26 September. Guests at the awards event included international designers and the finalists who had travelled to London from around the world.