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The designer who won an award with her electric bass guitar - #AnnualSpotlight

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Laura Mimini is possibly one of the most ambitious industrial designers we've seen join the Creativepool Awards. With a background in art and design, Laura is extremely focused in the emotional part of any piece of design she may ever envision, and that was a much valued element in her Annual 2020 submission.

Laura won a Bronze prize in Annual 2020 thanks to her amazing Meum electric bass guitar, a project blending all of her passions together, clearly coming from the heart. A year and a pandemic later, Laura is now trying to toughen up her own independence, by trying to set up a business and offering services as well as creating products. We are quite proud to hear that The Annual has given her all the confidence she needed to embark on such a journey.

For our first Annual Spotlight of 2021, we went back to Laura for a quick chat about the Creativepool awards, our splendid community and her incredibly ambitious future plans.

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What feels unique about The Annual?

In the last year I’ve been participating and won several international design awards. Creativepool is one of them, and I can say that the main difference is that it feels more like a “creative community prize”. I felt much more personally awarded and recognized from my creative contribution rather than being a number in a middle of big worldwide brands. The uniqueness of the Creativepool awards is that you truly have a “follow up” and a lot of featuring after the prize announcement, and also you get support from the amazing and hardworking staff that works behind the Annual scenes.

How does it feel to have won the Creativepool Annual Awards?

It’s always a huge honour to be rewarded with a prize related your work and your passions. What I loved about Creativepool Annual Award is that you feel part of a community, a community of artists, not only designers, but let's say likeminded people. That means that, in the product design case, not only the functionality of a project is taken into account but mainly the artistic part of your project would be understood. I attended artistic studies for all of my career, since when I was a child, and that’s why I love always to put my artistic feelings in what I design at first.

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Will you be entering again this year? If so, what are your hopes?

Unfortunately this year I’m not going to participate. The main reason is that with the pandemic the amount of investment put into projects by companies slowed down. Last year I’ve been working on several projects that are not yet in production and not ready to be shown. When you decide to participate in this kind of annuals, you need to do it with the right project and the right commitment to it, especially if it’s not your own production, as you need also the approval of the investors themselves.

Can you tell us more about your winning submissions and what you think impressed the judges?

Meum is a very personal project to me. This bass guitar came out from my deepest passions, music, art and design, and I think that’s the thing that makes it unique and special. The main challenge here was to merge these passions together and make a design product to put in the tough and iconic instrumental music field. I guess the artistic backgrounds of the judges noticed the passion and my maniacal love for aesthetic and details and that’s what they were impressed about, or at least I’d like to think so. :)

What advice would you share with other agencies and individuals looking to grab a prize?

Create with passion, not for the profit, and love your work. Outstanding results will come without effort.

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How do you feel Covid has impacted the creative landscape in 2020? How can The Annual make a difference?

I think Covid has definitely impacted everything in 2020 (and it’s still), especially the creative field. About Meum, all the marketing process I had in mind slowed down and I’m still dealing with production problems in Italy for example, especially because I can’t travel there nowadays. I live and work in China so the situation here is much better than Europe for example. Companies are healthy and full of work. 

Personally speaking, I’m not sure If I chose the right moment to enter my projects into many awards because I lost a lot of benefits which would usually be given by them in 2020 (ceremonies cancelled, expositions denied, networking opportunities, yearly books not provided, advertising, personal interviews, conferences, ext…). On the other hand, I gained a lot in terms of work opportunities, because of my location and the difficulty for foreigners to travel to China easily. A lot of local entities are willing to collaborate and ask for my expertise, especially because of the mediatic and digital advertising and resonance I could have experienced here in China due to the prizes won in 2020.

What are your hopes for 2021 and beyond?

My big wish is to start travelling very soon. Out of business concerns, I really miss my family and friends after almost 2 years far from Italy and I’ve started having some problems dealing with home sickness (also Italian food is a big deal here). In the meantime I’m trying to focus my efforts into creating more business opportunities in China and remotely and strengthen my own independence. My wish, not only to myself but to all of us, would be to gain more serenity, that’s my true hope.

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What is your most exciting project in the next year? How will your victory in the Annual give it a boost?

As I hinted before, the main project for this year would be to strengthen my independence much more, meaning that I’m willing to open my own product design activity as a service as much as investing in personal projects. Of course the Annual gave me much more confidence and trust in myself, that’s no small matter. Everything is on process and I’m not able to tell more as of yet, I just know that somehow I feel I’m moving in the right direction and I'm actually really excited to see how it all will turn out.

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