The mild economic revival in the first years of the new century and another entry of young designers was reflected in the subsequent development of design in Slovakia. In the field of furniture design, in addition to the designers mentioned above, the youngest generation started to achieve success: Andrea Pinkova, Jakub Janiga, Rastislav Celeda and others. There were more and more of those who implemented domestic production and cultural traditions into contemporary interior design: along with Tibor Uhrin there are other successful designers in this field such as Simon Misurda, Etela Lucova, Peter Mladenek and other young designers. The competition ‘The Ripples’ and other events organised by ÚĽUV – Centre for Folk Art Production and the Slovak Design Centre (SDC) played a very positive role in supporting the identity of national design. In addition to the existing magazine Designum, a new magazine RUD – Crafts, Art, Design was launched.
The Slovak Design Centre has gained a permanent exhibition hall (Satelit), which became the germ of the Slovak Museum of Design. The first attempts at setting up a similar institution date back to the 1920s, but the successful completion of the efforts of several generations of designers and those interested in design came in 2014 with the inscription of the Slovak Museum of Design into the register of museums and galleries of the Slovak Republic. The museum focuses on the collection, presentation and research of all forms of design, particularly national production.
A positive trend in Slovakia is the foundation of companies that are based on the cutting-edge design. In this regard, we can mention the OMS company producing top-ranking lighting technology and the Tuli company focused on the production of interior elements of soft textile. Rastislav Turek, Jaroslav Tomascik and Martin Struss set themselves up in the area of medical technology along with Ferdinand Chrenka.
Although the expanding car production in Slovakia is limited to car assembly without the opportunity to intervene in development, there are some new remarkable designers working in important positions for prominent worldwide producers. Jozef Kaban has become the main designer of the Škoda company which also cooperates with Michal Kacmar, Peter Olah and other Slovak designers.
The small-lot production of sports cars with attractive design was developed thanks to designer Juraj Mitra (K1 Styling-Tuning Company, later Praga). Stefan Klein became an expressive personality in the field of machine design thanks to projects for domestic and foreign producers, in addition to his pedagogical activities (his transport design department at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava is one of the most prominent places of this kind of work in Europe). The international attention was drawn to his combination of an automobile and a plane – Aeromobil.
The next area of design that developed was that which emphasised the conceptual dimension of creation and was moving on the border between commercial art and free art. Its creators were mostly graduates of the Department of Art Design department of Frantisek Burjan at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Silvia Jokelova brought a new phenomenon of design shaded by feminism into the world of Slovak design.
Even at the beginning of the 21st century, graphic design has profited from the inflow of new designers. Thanks to the likes of Martin Sutovec, Robert Parso, Pavol Balik, Peter Huba, Jan Sicko, Eva Pec-Brezinova and others, the design of books and magazines has achieved a positive shift of quality. The field of font design has been strengthened by members of latest generation of designers, notably Daniel Markovic, Jan Filipek and Ondrej Job. And more and more graphic designers are starting to focus on web page design. Even in graphic design, new creative ways of pressing the limits between free and commercial art have appeared, led by figures such as Jan Sicko and some others. A significant part of graphic designers of the young generation concentrates on socially useful activities outside the commercial sphere. We can mention at least the project Design on the Wheels, in which the graphic designers offer their services for free to subjects which cannot afford the work of professional designers.