Every year the Chessmen Museum organizes a chess game competition. This year’s competition was very exciting: the participating designers received nearly the same amount of votes and for a long time it was a neck-and-neck race. Now all the votes have been counted…
The chess game design competition is a creative contest for every age. Design your own chess game and win an amazing prize! There are always many designers answering our call and in 2013 this resulted in five completely different chess game designs. The designs have been on display at the Chessmen Museum since Rotterdam Museum Night 2013 and all of the museum’s visitors had the opportunity to vote for their favorite design: they were our professional jury.
The designs
The contestants have all worked hard on their designs, but there can only be one winner. A total of 515 votes were cast, an increase of 25% in comparison to the year before. The majority of these votes went to the (literally) most tasteful design.
Healthy vs. unhealthy is the chess game designed by Wissal Chiguer, Dewi Sterk and Lizelot van den Berg and is the winner of the 2013 edition of the chess game competition. The young ladies from primary school De Pijler in Rotterdam received 135 votes. The colorful game board and the deceivingly real-looking candies, carrots and hamburgers convinced the majority of our voters.
The idea for this design came to the girls when they were on their way to gym class. Clay seemed the obvious choice for the creation of the desired shapes but the chess pieces were very fragile and many of them broke while being painted. The three ladies therefore had to start over many times. The game board itself was also a challenge: the pupils cut it out of wood themselves and painted on the squares of the board in great detail. The final result is truly beautiful. This was also the opinion of the jurors of the chess game competition for students, organized by the Erasmiaans Gymnasium in 2013. The jury praised the style as well as the theme of the game, in a time when many children suffer from obesity. The girls won second prize in this competition: a day out for their whole class.
Runner up in the museum’s competition was Ivanka with her Scotsmen vs. Englishmen chess game. She received 107 votes and won the second prize in the competition. The reason Ivanka participated in the contest was the victory of her friend Kiki in a previous edition of the chess game competition. In 2012 they decided to partake in the competition together but ended in last place. They felt they had to do better and for the 2013 edition of the competition they each submitted a design. The underdog position of the Scotsmen was what made Ivanka decide to represent the war between the Scottish and the English: smart strategies were the way to Scottish victory over the superior English army.
The execution of her design was somewhat tedious… The little figurines made of wooden skewers were fragile and broke more than once. Ivanka chose these materials anyway because she could give them a second chance on life. The caps of beer bottles and aluminum slabs all end in the dustbin at her school, just as pieces of wool and cardboard do. The only thing she bought for her project are the 32 beads for the heads of the pieces. During her Media Graphic Design studies complemented with Art & Design at the School of Graphics in Rotterdam Ivanka learned how to shape artifacts according to a concept. “Chess pieces are works of art as well, as long as there is a story and a reason behind them”, she comments on her design.
Third prize winner is Recycling by F.G. Melink, by difference of just one single vote: 106 were the votes in favor of his design. It was the favorite piece of the environmentally conscious museum visitors and the wonderful design ended up in the middle position in the final rankings. Melink constructed his chess pieces from secondhand lids and caps in all shapes and sizes. The colored caps, with a stout orange king leading the way, fight their battle of chess with the black caps.
Ivanka’s rival ended up in fourth place: the Fantasy chess set made by Kiki received 84 votes. Kiki, the winner of a previous edition of the chess game competition aimed for the first prize again with a creative clay design. The name of the game kind of gives it away: the endearing chess pieces are fantasy figures. The design appealed to a lot of children but Kiki’s bad luck was that the other happy chess game, Healthy vs. Unhealthy also attracted a lot of young visitors aka voters.
Plee Chess (the Dutch ‘plee’ meaning ‘toilet’, pronounced ‘play’) by Pieter de Koning takes up the final position in the competition with 83 of the votes. It was a surprising result since many visitors were immediately attracted by this game. The chess game, made of toilet paper rolls, has a comical look to it and the word-play of its name is quite witty. The rolls are cut off at the top, so that it is immediately clear what piece we are dealing with. In the end this wasn’t enough to convince our visitors and they voted for the other designs. The jury has spoken.
Design competition 2014: vote for a chess game
In 2014 the Chessmen Museum will organize another chess game design competition. The artifacts will be shown for the first time during Rotterdam Museum Night 2014, on the 8th of March. From then on, all visitors of the Chessmen Museum will be able to vote for their favorite design. So drop by for a visit, have a look at the designs and be the judge of the submitted chess games.
We will count the votes in January and February 2015, when the Chessmen Museum will be closed. Rotterdam Museum Night 2015 will be the festive scene of the award ceremony. Director Ridder Dijkshoorn will announce the winners and hand out the awards in the Chessmen Museum. We would like to invite everyone to come and attend the ceremony!
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