Photos by Elena Claverol

Barcelona-based design studio La Granja Design is pleased to present their latest project, the medals for the 2013 Swimming World Championship in their hometown. FINA (the Federation Internationale de Natation) selected their design from the concepts submitted by five studios in a private design contest over a year ago; the swimming competition started about a week ago on July 19 and will continue until August 4th.Wanting to do something unconventional but deeply rooted into the swimming world, we borrowed the idea of a silicon strap from the swim goggles. This opened to lagranja a full range of possibilities.

Silicon's technological properties enabled us to hold the medal in a completely different way, embracing it instead of hanging it. This, of course, lead us to new forms.

Of course, the paradox of trophy design is that victory should be an achievement in itself... but perhaps a thoughtfully-designed physical token of one's accomplishment is extra incentive for a design-savvy competitor. Yet the trophy or medal is also a very specific instance of a design object, one that must be worthy of the achievement, and thus it was no surprise that the American Design Club's recent trophy-themed exhibition included work from 30-odd designers.

Which is a long way of saying that La Granja have created a medal that duly celebrates the aquatic athletes as they vie for glory... and gold.