Formica Canada Invites Canadian Students to Enter The 2025 FORM Student Innovation Competition

Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, September 10, 2024 — Formica Canada announces the opening of the 2025 FORM Student Innovation Competition. Now in its eighth year, this annual furniture design competition invites students studying architecture and interior design in Canada, the U.S and Mexico to share their inventiveness through original designs that feature Formica^® Brand products with this year's theme “Designing for Well-being.”

The rising understanding of neuroaesthetics, how the aesthetics around us can impact our mental and physical health is making an impact in interior design, and Formica Corporation has made this the focal point of the 2025 competition. “Designing for Well-being” will allow students to demonstrate how elements like colour, sound and patterns can have a positive impact on one’s well-being. Participation students will provide a project statement and colour rendering of their furniture design that includes at least three or more Formica^® Brand or FENIX™ products.

“The last edition of the competition attracted an exceptional group of Canadian students who distinguished themselves by the number of participants, but also by the creativity and quality of the designs submitted, especially the Canadian Cali Pitcher, grand prize winner of the competition” said Christelle Locat-Rainville, Marketing Director at Formica Canada. “We can't wait to see how participants of the 2025 competition will interpret the theme “Designing for Well-being” and discover their creations”.

Each entrant will have the chance to win cash prizes and to get national recognition at NeoCon 2025, June 9-11, in Chicago, the leading design and event for commercial interiors (see Formica’s video on NeoCon 2024). The grand prize winner will receive a $2,000 USD cash award and their design will be fabricated and displayed during NeoCon 2025. The second-place winner will be awarded $1,000 USD and the third-place winner will receive $500 USD. The top three winners will also be invited to attend NeoCon 2025 as Formica guests for the opportunity to network with industry professionals, discover emerging trends and meet with leaders of the design community.

The competition is open from Sept. 10, 2024, through March 7, 2025, with winners announced in early May. A distinguished panel of industry leaders will judge the students' work. 
For more information, including complete competition details, resources and rules, visit formica.com/FormCompetition.

Inspired By Design Industry Legends
The annual FORM Student Innovation Competition continues to grow as more students across the U.S., Canada and Mexico submit their inventive and thought-provoking designs, with last year's competition seeing a 26% increase in entries from the previous year. The current iteration of FORM is inspired by a challenge Formica Corporation held in 2008, when the company invited design greats — including Jaime Velez, Zaha Hadid, Michael Graves, Bernard Tschumi and Massimo Vignelli, among others — to create works of art from Formica^® Brand products. Their designs, which ranged from domestic pieces to conceptual sculptures, were then exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.

Keeping the spirit alive from the original challenge, the 2025 FORM Student Innovation Competition invites the next generation of designers to express their creativity in these original furniture designs, showing attention to detail, inventive design and a unique point of view.