The 9th Zijin Award Cultural Creative Design Competition started the final evaluation on February 15.

As the highest award in Jiangsu's cultural and creative design industry, this edition included participant roadshows, lectures by famous designers, and networking activities. This competition collected more than 28,600 entries, among which some 1,000 works were shortlisted for the final.

(Photos provided to Xinhua Daily)

"With simple and beautiful packaging, novel materials and traditional elements, the entries are of high quality and generally pay more attention to environmental protection," said Cao Fang, professor at the School of Design, Nanjing University of the Arts.

Cao said some time-honored enterprises have taken advantage of their cultural heritage and also combined innovative designs and packaging to improve their branding.

The competition also included digital works for the first time and added the "digital creativity award." Some finalists have featured Metaverse and explored its application possibilities.