In 2021 the Finnish representative for Eurovision is chosen through Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) for the tenth time. For honor of UMK’s tenth birthday YLE organized a competition where participants could design a trophy for future UMK-winners. The competition is now over and we have a winner!
24 propositions were sent to the contest and professional jury chose two of them to the final round. A public voting was organized between those two, and that voting was won by the design Before the Party Starts, which was designed by Minna Viitalähde:
The winning design received 373 votes, which was 57,7% off all votes.
According to YLE, the jury told the following about the designs sent to the competition:
Designs were interesting and UMK-spirit had been achieved in them: lightness, the joy of music and new kind of creativity. Proposals showed that UMK was familiar to the designers, or even a passion.
The trophy will be going around from one UMK-winner to another, so it has to be lasting. According to the jury, there were also other terms the designs had to fulfill:
After the first elimination we still had a number of interesting propositions on the table, and we had some vivid conversation about them. We discussed more closely about the significance of the trophy, its grandeur and practical things, such as producibility and lastingness. The quality of the competition was high, which made the jury’s work hard, but even more interesting.
The final choices were made after a long consideration:
In the two propositions that were chosen to the final round UMK-spirit was the brightest, and the jury felt that the appearance was dignified and convincing, but not too serious. Both of them are long-lasting and serve their purpose. In other proposal you can find some monumental touch, and the other one is festive in a playful way. Both suggestions felt ready, considered and realistic to execute.
The contestants of UMK 2021 will be releaved in January 2021 and the final of the contest is held in Tampere in February 20th 2021. In 2020 UMK was won by Aksel Kankaanranta with his song Looking Back:
