Bold Design Award

A creative shower soap holder design earned civil engineering major Melissa Hoerber ’17 top honors in a Baldwin Hardware design competition.

Hoerber, of Fulton, Missouri, won the interior hardware company’s Bold Design Award Competition for her work. The competition, part of Baldwin Hardware’s 70^th anniversary celebration, awarded a student as well as top submissions from professional architects and designers. Hoerber received a $5,000 scholarship with the award.

The soap holder was designed to serve a function — reduce soap residue buildup — while retaining a fashionable form.

“I enjoyed participating in the competition,” Hoerber said. “I used it as an opportunity to test my creativity and problem solving skills by coming up with ideas that are creative, yet practical. I believe that creativity is a habit, and it’s something people need to constantly be pursuing in order to push for progress.”