DAFES | Design, Art, Fashion, Education & Startups

OPEN CALL: Poster Design
This nomination welcomes all types and genres of posters, without thematic restrictions. Judging criteria include the concept’s originality, uniqueness, alignment with the theme or brief, and relevance to current global poster trends.

Requirements:
- Open to all genders, ages, nationalities, or professional levels.
- Both concepts and projects that have been implemented or published between November 1, 2023, and October 12, 2025, are accepted.

Submission deadline: October 12
Don’t wait until the last minute, apply today via the link!

DAFES AWARDS is an international competition that celebrates creative achievements and supports professional growth in design, art, fashion, education, and startups.

#DAFESAWARDS

Game Boy Is Back!
LEGO pays tribute to gaming history with a new set recreating the legendary Nintendo Game Boy! Nearly identical in size to the late-1980s classic, the constructor model captures every design detail.
To dial up the nostalgia, it also features the game pak slot and comes with "Super Mario" and "The Legend of Zelda" game paks. A true celebration of handheld gaming’s golden era!

The set will be available in LEGO shops in October 2025, with an estimated price of $60. A perfect idea of a present for Millennials 👾

#InnovativeDesign

WEEKEND WATCH: Film "Orlando" by Sally Potter (1992)

Adapted from the famous Virginia Woolf novel "Orlando: A Biography", this visionary film stars the unforgettable Tilda Swinton as a nobleman who lives for centuries — and one day wakes up as a woman.

When Sally Potter first pitched the film in 1984, she was told it was “unmakable, impossible, too expensive, and not interesting.” Yet Orlando proved the skeptics wrong, becoming a landmark in cinema.

Potter called her task “ruthless fidelity” to Woolf’s spirit — simplifying the plot to suit the cinematic form while preserving the novel’s radical core. What emerged is a film as bold as the book: a meditation on self-identification, power and time.

For lovers of fashion history, art direction, and boundary-breaking narrative, this is a must-watch!

#WeekendRecommendation

Week News Digest

Who will inherit Anna Wintour’s crown at Vogue?
Rumors say the frontrunner is Chloe Malle, Vogue.com’s editor and nepo-baby (daughter of actress Candice Bergen and director Louis Malle). Staff adore her, and she’s already in the “final rounds” to step into Wintour’s legendary shoes.

Snoop Dogg Auction
Meanwhile, art meets hip-hop history: Erica Kovitz’s collaboration with Snoop Dogg — using remnants of his smoked blunts in mixed-media works — has surprisingly fetched $148 100 at auction. “This project reflects Snoop’s heart and generosity,” the artist said.*

Think Pink
In Melbourne, the Royal Exhibition Building has been transformed into a breathtaking sea of pink fabric! MATRIA, a giant inflatable installation by Penique Productions, immerses visitors in color and sound, hosting concerts and performances as part of the "Now or Never" arts festival.

*At DAFES, we share news of creativity and innovation — but we stand firmly against drugs!

#DAFESNewsDigest

5 Figma plugins every designer should try
If you want to speed up your workflow and explore new tools, try these free plugins:

1. Color Spark — generates editable color schemes for your prototypes.
2. Figmotion — allows creating and exporting animations directly in Figma (HTML, CSS, JS).
3. Figr Identity — allows building scalable design systems with 80+ customizable components.
4. Lummi — free AI-generated stock images from digital artists.
5. Autoflow — draws flow arrows for user flows, diagrams, and UX maps. This plugin is free up to 50 flows per file.

#DAFES

Dorothea Lange: The Eye of Social Conscience

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) changed the course of documentary photography through a profound empathy towards the people she portrayed.

At first, she wanted to be a portrait photographer and opened a photo atelier in San Francisco in the 1920s. But it was the Great Depression that truly defined her calling. Her photograph, White Angel Bread Line (1933), marked a turning point. The image soon became a symbol of collective suffering. From then on, Lange decided to use photography to give voice to the unseen. She followed migrant workers, displaced families, and rural poverty—capturing not only conditions, but the complex emotional terrain of survival.
In 1942, she bravely documented the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII — a project the government would suppress for years.

Her iconic images helped to shape American consciousness, and her legacy remains inseparable from the very idea of socially engaged photography.

#DAFESLearning

OPEN CALL: Editorial Design
DAFES invites students and professionals working with printed publications to participate in the competition! This nomination accepts the following types of projects:
- Zines;
- Calendars;
- Brochures;
- Catalogues;
- Series of postcards;
- And other printed projects thatdo not fall under the definition of a book.

Requirements:
- Open to all genders, ages, nationalities, or professional levels.
- Both concepts and projects that have been implemented or published between November 1, 2023, and October 12, 2025, are accepted.
- The subject matter of the publication is not limited.

Timeline:
Submission deadline: October 12
Voting process: October 13-19
The award ceremony: November 8

Don’t wait until the last minute, apply today via the link!

DAFES AWARDS is an international competition that celebrates creative achievements and supports professional growth in design, art, fashion, education, and startups.

#DAFESAWARDS

iPhone Case with LED Screen

What if your phone case could groove with your music or flash your mood?
The Picdance iPhone case, created in collaboration with Kiwidesign, is only 3.6 millimeters thick, including the LED screen that can show pictures, lights, and even music.

Users can customize the display, design their own pixel-art, and share it through a dedicated creative app. The case responds to calls, messages, and music in real-time, transforming alerts into playful pixel icons.

The case is available on Amazon for approximately $50.

#DAFESNewsDigest

WEEKEND RECOMMENDATION
This weekend, we invite you to explore Design Reviewed — an independent digital archive passionately curated by designer Matt Lamont.

What started as a personal collection has grown into a remarkable resource documenting the history of graphic design of the 20th century. You will find there carefully selected materials, such as rare design magazines, stamps, books, and many others.

#WeekendRecommendation

DAFES CHOICE — JUNE 2025: books
June brought us a stunning wave of book design. The jury couldn’t pick just one — so they celebrated six brilliant works!

I place:
"My name is Erik Satie... just like everyone else.…" by Polina Livaich;
"Chronicles of the mountain" by Chulpan Zaydullina;
"Sands. The last address" by Kseniya Shibova-Borskaya;
"Chernobyl. Human history of an inhuman disaster" by Snezhana Gireva.

II place:
"Mai sans fin: voices of the 1968 revolution" by Georgiy Novikov.

III place:
"Malevich" by Kseniya Chepanova.

You too can be featured in DAFES Choice — just upload your work in design, fashion, art, photography, or creative startups on deziiign.com!

#DAFESChoice