Presented as part of Vivid Sydney, the winners of the Good Design Awards were announced last week with the top prize shared by two finalists, a first for the awards.
Announced during a black tie gala evening, Brisbane-based design consultancy Aurecon and Wellington-based digital design agency Chrometoaster were announced as the winners of the Good Design of the Year Award.
Good Design Australia chief executive, Dr Brandon Gien, says the awards attracted innovative entries from all over the world with an incredibly high standard of submissions this year.
“Trying to pick between these two finalists proved to be too great a challenge for the judging panel,” he explains.
“Both demonstrate design, innovation and creativity in two very different forms, and are a testament to the exceptional design expertise of products, services, designs and concepts that are available in the Australian market.
“It is also encouraging to see two very diverse design projects such as this aimed at solving two very important challenges―one aimed at improving literacy skills among our younger generations and the other aimed at solving the damaging nature of floods in our environment. These two winners perfectly demonstrate the power of design thinking as a creative problem solving process at a time when our world needs it most,” Gien adds.
Aurecon’s entry, flood resilient and accessible ferry terminals for Brisbane, offers a better way to make critical transport infrastructure flood resilient and was designed following the devastating floods in Brisbane in 2011.
Chrometoaster’s Game of Awesome card game is designed to inspire year five to eight students to write creative stories while increasing their literacy levels. The judges loved the simplicity of the project, saying that it “recognised the design thinking baked into this project at the deepest level” and that “its playfulness, creativity, insightfulness and accessibility absolutely nails good design”.
Other winners include Eccentric by Rogerseller (product design furniture and lighting), Everdure by Heston Blumenthal charcoal barbeque range (product design domestic appliances), and Only Good by Milk NZ (communication design―packaging).
The Good Design Awards celebrate the best new products and services on the Australian market, excellence in architectural design, digital and communication design and reward emerging areas of design including business model innovation, social innovation and design entrepreneurship.
By Marion Gerritsen
