With this First Harvest, Fazer proposes to associate the idea of innovation with the creation and research carried out at design higher education institutions in Portugal – and by Portuguese students around the world. To this end, we launched an open call to select ten works by recent graduates with bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees in design.

The works shown here represent various schools and fields of design. They reveal new promises from and in Portugal, expressed in projects developed in the classrooms, workshops and design laboratories of Portuguese universities and polytechnic institutes. And by Portuguese citizens studying abroad. Shown and interpreted as tangible manifestations of what innovation is and can be today, these projects include both experimental and speculative approaches and pragmatic responses developed for the specific social and cultural reality of our country.

The variety of projects gathered here confirms the healthy diversity of the newest generation of Portuguese designers. Attuned to contemporary concerns, they focus on themes such as leisure, community, feminism, history and the planetary crisis, among others. What emerges, ultimately, is an urgent need to find new ways of making and thinking about the discipline itself, while challenging preconceived notions about design education, vocation and profession.