New Vienna souvenirs

Under the motto "European Home Run", the Vienna Tourist Board has held a European design competition to find the souvenir of the 21st century.

The Vienna Tourist Board (WienTourismus) is committed to portraying Vienna as a city where beauty and tradition are part of the present and future, not just the past. As most souvenirs usually available in Vienna nowadays do not reflect this image, the Vienna Tourist Board decided to launch an international design competition to find new ideas and solutions.

Souvenir prototypes were to be submitted by six hand-picked designers. Winning designs would be selected by a jury of international experts and in a public voting campaign.

All prototypes were presented to the public in a series of events for the tourist industry, and press conferences held by the Vienna Tourist Board. Votes could be cast directly at the events, or online on the website of the Vienna Tourist board. Moreover, the prototypes were on display at the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, and visitors were invited to cast their vote right there.

Now the expert jury has selected the winning design: a deck of Vienna-themed cards by the Italian studio Formafantasma. About 33,000 votes were cast by public voting, most of them for the pop-up miniatures designed by Spanish designer Hector Serrano. Both winning designs will enter production.

Jury favourite: the deck of cards

The jury prize went to the Italian designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin (Studio Formafantasma) for a deck of cards reflecting typical regional patterns and images from Vienna. Even the card box has the city's rubber stamp mark on the outside and the roof tile pattern of St. Stephen's Cathedral on the inside.

Winner of the public voting campaign: pop-up sights

The Spanish designer Hector Serrano and his pop-up miniatures of well-known Vienna sights came out on top in the public voting campaign. Serrano used an innovative etching technique on thin sheets of silver-coloured brass to produce flat metal cards with three-dimensional pop-up miniatures of the Giant Ferris Wheel, Schönbrunn Palace, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Vienna Secession building.

Serrano's design received 8,008 of the total 33,378 votes cast.