Hogai’s debut at Łódź Design Festival 2024 and 3 MUST HAVE awards!

We celebrated HOGAI’s first birthday threefold! Our debut at the Łódź Design Festival brought great excitement, recognition from experts and 3 MUST HAVE statuettes! Such an award is a great support – it tells us that we have done something very well, motivates and drives us to act creatively. At the festival we presented our furniture (mirrors) and textiles.

Lodz Design Festival has been presenting trends in global design and supporting the Polish creative industry for 18 years, and for 13 years it has been awarding the best designers and manufacturers with the prestigious title of MUST HAVE.

The MUST HAVE award, confirms excellence in design, innovation and functionality, is the most prestigious award among designers in the Polish market. It is a mark of quality and creativity awarded by the Council of Experts – experts in aesthetics, which this year (2024) was formed by an extraordinary group consisting of:

Agnieszka Gruszczyńska-Hyc Editor-in-Chief ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST POLAND
Kamil Białas Editor-in-Chief of WHITE MAD MAGAZINE and withemad.pl
Anna Gruzewska Editor-in-Chief of CZAS NA WNĘTRZE magazine
Jola Skóra Anna Olga Chmielewska – Designers and Creators from the JAM KOLEKTYW studio.
Katarzyna Księżopolska Editor-in-Chief of MAGAZIF.com portal
Maria Ostrowska Service and UX Designer, Cultural Anthropologist,
Monika Pągowska Tomasz Pągowski Designers Creators PĄGOWSKI STUDIO
Michał Piernikowski Director of Łódź Design Festival
Hanna Rydlewska Publishing Director of VOGUE POLSKA and Managing Editor of VOGUE POLSKA LIVING
Anna Zmijewska Editor at the ARCHITECTURE magazine MURATOR

Among the products entered in the competition, our mirrors and textiles caught the attention of the Experts.
The MUST HAVE award went to: PLAYER MIRROR, ARTIST MIRROR and the OP-ART textile collection: 4 designs of bedcovers and blankets, created in collaboration with Maurycy Gomulicki.

The first two statuettes went to products ARTIST and PLAYER are large standing mirrors, whose spatial frames are made of steel painted with structural lacquer (available in 11 color variants). These are objects that restore the status of mirrors as furniture – HOGAI’s proposal takes the product out of the accessories category, giving it a determining role in the interior. Our mirrors bring energy to interiors, and the color variants we propose are not just an aesthetic choice, but a manifesto in which we oppose the monochromatic dominance in contemporary design and interior architecture. The mirrors are the result of the work of the design group, which consists of Patrycja Bruz-Soniewicka, Bartek Klepinski and Katarzyna Erkiert.

With the third statuette, the Experts awarded the entire OP-ART. collection, which consists of 8 products – blankets and bedcovers, designed by one of Poland’s most important contemporary artists Maurycy Gomulicki. The OP-ART COLLECTION redefines textile artistry. It combines the tactile comfort of the highest quality jacquard fabrics with hypnotic patterns that create visual illusions. It has been acclaimed as a bold exploration of textile design, bringing contemporary art into interiors, giving it a utilitarian function.

Agnieszka Gruszczynska, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest in Poland, said this about Hogai while presenting us with the statuettes: “A brand that treats interior changes, novelties as a package of energy, color, which in a very clever way combined good communication, good service with working with a designer.”

We showcased our products during the MUST HAVE exhibition, running throughout the festival. In addition, the accompanying exhibition of @whitemadmagazine presented our CELLIST mirror and PAINTER shelves.

For Hogai, Lodz Design Festival 2024 was not only a platform to showcase its products but an opportunity to affirm creativity, creative courage and a celebration of Polish design. For Hogai, the accolades are more than just awards; they embody the brand’s philosophy – that spaces are not just areas we inhabit, but worlds that inspire and live. Recognition from the festival’s experts, in Hogai’s debut year, underscores the trajectory we want to follow in our design.

As we reflect on Hogai’s journey through its first year of operation, it’s clear that these accolades are not just a milestone, but another opening for innovative and inspiring projects to come.

The MUST HAVE title is both an honor and a challenge.
As we celebrate this success, we are not only thanking ourselves and appreciating what we have developed, over the past year, but we are smiling thinking about the brand’s future projects and ventures. We are also confident that THINGS TO SMILE TO – will remain a long-term mission for HOGAI, rather than one of the headlines, in our communications.