Designwire Daily: from the editors of Interior Design magazine

Mannington Commercial Announces Winners in Tx:style Competition

by Ian Volner | Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Paul Lewandowski and Sara Meier won this year's competition.

Modular carpet-maker Mannington Commercial has announced the winners of its 2011 tx:style Design Challenge. The annual competition saw over 500 designers submit patterns in two categories—one for designers with less than seven years in the field, another for those with more than seven years—which were then posted to Mannington’s website and voted on by some 35,000 viewers.

The winner in the junior category is Sara Meier, for a glamorous floor covering fabric titled “A la mode”. Says Meier, “This abstract design alludes to glitz and glam. It dances in the light.” Meier drew inspiration from vintage copies of Vogue and mid-century modernism for this glimmering pattern shot through with shiny sub-tones in abstract shapes.

A la mode by Sara Meier and Coastal Rocks by Paul Lewandowski

In the senior division, the winner was Paul Lewandowski for Coastal Rocks, a pattern based—as its designer puts it—”on the striated basaltic rock found on the Maine coast,” near where Lewandowski lives and works as an architect with Portland-based firm SMRT. Natural elements from sea, sky, and land inform the abstract, almost Clyfford Still-esque forms and colorways of this very organic floor covering.

The winners will both be packing their bags for an all-expense-paid trip to Maison & Objet in Paris, in addition to scoring $6,000 in cash and a full Mannington product collection set to debut at NeoCon in 2012.

Finalists line up to hear the winning designs.