Photo courtesy of Herman Miller

Photo courtesy of Herman Miller

"Most [design] competitions," says Sam Hecht, "are a way of predicting what the judges are looking for. But with the Lexus Design Award, what's intriguing is that we can go past the act of persuasion, and we can get into the realms of real thinking and real dialogue."

There's a new international design competition in town, and it's not the type that's finished once you send in your concept—in fact, your initial entry could be just the beginning. Winners of the Lexus Design Award will be invited to work with Hecht and/or architect Junya Ishigami, to develop their ideas into prototypes that'll be shown at Milan Design Week next year.

The LDA has a Logan's Run-style age cut-off of 30, but ten talented twentysomethings (or teens, if you can stop texting long enough to read this) will make the final cut. As for the theme, you'd assume the entries must be vehicle designs, but Lexus is keeping the design brief abstract:

The theme of the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD 2012 is motion—a word and concept directly connected to people's everyday lives. Under this theme, Lexus welcomes innovators and calls for works that display a deep understanding of Lexus design, uniquely interpret concepts and provide original perspectives on and solutions to various issues of daily life. Lexus welcomes designers' from all fields, such as architecture, product design and fashion.

Here's Hecht expounding on the concept a bit:

I realize most non-designers don't know who Hecht is, but it's weird to see him ride a bicycle around London anonymously—I wonder if Starck could get away with the same in Paris. (It's also a bit odd that the subtitles don't quite match Hecht's diction, but I assume they're trying to make it easier to parse for those who can read English better than they can speak it.)

Interested entrants have until December 31st to apply.