Today kicks off the beginning of a month-long party —the Festas de Lisboa— & one of my personal highlights is seeing the winners of a sardine design contest. No, not real sardinhas but the shape of one. Get your sketchpad out…
Since the year 2011, the private company that organizes all city-wide festivities during the month of June (EGEAC) has held a design contest based on the outline of the most popular foods eaten: the humble, but oh-so-tasty sardine. Color it in, change the texture, fill it with shapes, create it out of other images, you name it… but you have to stay true to the form.
Initiated by the design studio silvadesigners, they’ve made sure the contest & the sardine image is now an icon of Lisboa. They’ve even won a few of the most creative sardine designs:
Over the past 13 years, the contest has grown like crazy. Participants can be from anywhere in the world, with designs submitted between February & March of the current year. The current prize is 1500€ for each winning design, along with the thrill of seeing your creation plastered all over Lisboa. Some years have had themes, but most have not. Creativity is endless; just check out all the past winners below:
2011
2012
2013
2014
Theme: Que sardinha és tu? What sardine are you?
2015
2016
2017
2018
Theme: Salvem as sardinhas! Save the sardines!
2019
Theme: 100% Sardinha. 100% Sardine.
2020
2021
2022
2023
Theme: Abril, Sardinhas mil! Literally “April, a thousand sardines!” it’s a play on the common phrase “Abril, águas mil!“, meaning it rains a lot in April.
EGEAC received over 3,500 entries from 1,823 artists in 2024. Announced on March 31st, this year’s winners are…
2024
Theme: Risca e arrisca! Draw & be daring!
A great souvenir to remind you of all those sardines you’ve eaten is a book of 500 submissions to the contest —selected from 12,000 entries during the first ten years— also by silvadesigners & available from the Imprenta Nacional in the Rato neighborhood of Lisbon. Looks like they’ve also published a sequel, with more designs from 2014 to 2017.
Bom apetite!
Nice to reconnect and I’m excited to follow your blog. Looking forward to your expert guiding skills for the Andalusia tour starting this evening. My last tour with you was one of the first RS tours of Basque Country when we stayed all 7 days in San Sebastián. You and the tour were awesome and have kept me coming back. This is my 27 RS tour. Guess the style suits me! Later!
So nice to be back in touch! 27?! Hope you enjoy Andalucía as much!!