Polestar has launched its 2024 Design Contest in collaboration with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand. First run in 2020, the contest challenges aspiring designers (both professionals and students) to create exciting visions in line with the Polestar brand and design.
Since the first contest, the competition has highlighted top talent around the world, with many of the students going on to work for the Polestar Design team or in the wider professional design industry.
As before, the contest brief invites designers to surprise and thrill the judges with submissions propelled by the imagination of their youth. Weaving Polestar’s design DNA into their vision of the ultimate Hot Wheels collectible promises the most extreme edition of the Polestar Design Contest to date.
The winning design is planned to become part of the Hot Wheels range, available for purchase around the world. It will be the first Hot Wheels x Polestar vehicle to be produced as part of a wider partnership with Polestar production models.
Entrants are encouraged to be as imaginative as possible and push the boundaries of performance and design of the vehicle in their final submission. The only requirement is that Mattel should be able to translate the final design into a 1:64 Hot Wheels die-cast vehicle, and visuals showing the vehicle’s interior design and immediate surroundings should be included as part of the submission.
In the spirit of the competition’s history of collaboration, the 20 entrants shortlisted ahead of final selection – by both Polestar and Hot Wheels design professionals – will be coached one-on-one by Polestar’s design team to refine their submitted designs towards final selection.
“Dreams have the power to inspire and transport us beyond what we thought possible. This is a chance for all participating designers to really push that Polestar envelope and let their imagination run riot,” said Maximilian Missoni, Polestar’s Head of Design.
“I believe this year’s Hot Wheels collaboration will push the design community to work outside of their traditional comfort zones by balancing the minimalist Polestar brand essence with the extreme Hot Wheels aesthetic,” added Juan Pablo Bernal, Interior Design Manager at Polestar, founder of the Polestar Design Contest and curator of the @polestardesigncommunity Instagram page.
Since the start, the Polestar Design Contest has featured a variety of vehicles and cutting edge concepts and draws entries from students and professional designers across the globe. The designs have included a car which tackles local pollution with on-board and externally visible air filters, an electric-and-helium airship, prosthetic springboard blades to aid walking, and KOJA, the micro-space tree house by Finnish designer Kristian Talvitie that was brought to life in full scale at the renowned Fiskars Art & Design Biennale in Finland.
Last year, Polestar debuted the Synergy concept car, winner of that contest’s Performance theme, during the IAA event in Munich, followed by Mattel’s Hot Wheels Legends Tour stop in California. The single-seat electric supercar is as much a story of collaboration as it is design, with two exterior and one interior design winners selected from over 600 initial entries, who then spent six months working together with the Polestar Design team to turn three distinct dreams into one cohesive reality.
The competition opens for entries on March 5, 2024 and the submission deadline is April 16, 2024. The format for submission is Format: 1920×1080 px, jpg or png. The template to use will be accessible to download when submissions open on March 5. Polestar expects to reveal the winner of the contest during the fourth quarter of this year.
For more information, visit the Polestar Design Contest page.