The winner of the 16th annual National Design Award 2019 - product design in the category of Student design is Mgr. art. Mária Fialková, a design graduate from the Faculty of Arts, TUKE..

In 2018, the national design award went to Mgr. Art. Samuel Čarnoky, ArtD. from the Department of Design, Faculty of Arts TUKE, for a graphic design of the book by photographer Lena Jakubčáková with a title "Spis 44".

The winner of this year is Mária Fialková with her Master's thesis "The Kit hor an Urban Kid", which was elaborated under the supervision of Professor Tibor Uhrín, Head of the Department of Design.

It involves a set of interactive play kits for children inspired by the four seasons – children can plant herbs in the spring, play the hitchhiker in the summer, create their own herbarium in the autumn, or build a bird feeder and watch the behaviour of birds in the winter.

In this way the author responds to the current negative trend of reducing the movement of children into small spaces of fenced playgrounds, which are increasingly being made of plastic, from floors to details of climbing frames, and she advocates the return of children to the natural environment that provides them with not only a variety of sensory stimuli, but mainly creative freedom to invent their own games.

In addition to the overall intention, the jury also appreciated a form of presentation and sophisticated image processing of the kits.

The awarding authority of the National Design Award is the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic and its organization is provided by the Slovak Centre of Design. A total number of 139 theses were submitted this year, of which an international jury selected the final 51 theses. The awards ceremony took place on October 11, 2019 at the cultural centre Design Factory in Bratislava.