Dennis Dominguez won the red dot: junior prize for German designer

In order to increase chances for young talent and set impulses for tomorrow already today, red dot specifically supports fledgling designers, annually awarding the “red dot: junior prize”, worth 10,000 euros. The junior prize goes to Dennis Dominguez from Cologne, Germany, for his book “Stereotype”.

In total, eight works from different categories were nominated for the honorary title; the jury selected “Stereotype” because of its outstanding design and the topic’s original implementation. The book about prejudices and national clichés depicts the properties we attribute to certain professional groups, nations and religions in a highly bold as well as entertaining way. With a rich collection of quotes from famous politicians, writers and journalists, a total of 20 caricatures of different national stereotypes are presented. Their specific traits are exposed by the designer using stylised and minimal illustrations. In another chapter he creates rankings using icons showing objects such as knives, roosters and also condoms, ranking nations according to characteristics such as “murderers, violent and vindictive people”, “show-offs and arrogant people”, and “seducers, whores, and people thinking with their genitals”. The fact that today – exactly as we did centuries ago – we take in clichés and prejudices like a dry sponge absorbs water, and that they stick like limpets, is discovered by the reader in an amusing and impressive way.

The “red dot: junior prize” will be presented to Dennis Dominguez at the festive awards presentation on 9 December 2009 in the red dot design museum in Essen, Germany.

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.