Media Design School students score big at Australia’s annual Good Design Awards
The winners of Australia’s annual Good Design Awards were announced this week, with two Media Design School projects winning ‘Next Gen’ awards for Service Design and Digital Design. The projects, titled Pick and Grow, were created by Bachelor of Media Design students in 2019 and were the only winning entries from New Zealand in their categories.
Says Paul Brafield, general manager of Media Design School: “This is a fantastic result for MDS and a testament to both the quality of our students’ work and the important social context that surrounds these projects. It’s great to see our students and faculty being recognised internationally for their exceptional talent.”
Says Jim Murray, programme leader for Media Design: “I’m very proud of the students and faculty involved. Picking up two international Good Design awards for projects that have strong connections to key stakeholders in the community is particularly gratifying. The Digital Design Award for Grow stems from a collaborative project with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, while the Service Design Award for Pick reflects the ongoing importance of empowering students to support socially conscious design.”
Grow (pictured above), was created by a group of four MDS students and is a recruitment campaign that promotes volunteering to people who are passionate, eager to learn, and willing to give back to the community. The jury described the project as a ‘really beautiful piece of communication design – well executed with bold attention-grabbing imagery.’
Pick, designed by Mona Gabr, is a prototype tag system that provides assistance to people with disability – such as vision impairment – when catching the bus on public transport. The system allows communication between the individual and the bus drivers by using near field communication; ensuring that the passenger gets on the right bus.
The Good Design Awards Jury praised Pick as being: “creative inclusive design responding to a real, identified and well-framed problem.”
Mona Gabr responded to the news: “It’s so amazing. I didn’t expect this at all. I was doing the project with a lot of passion to find a solution – I wasn’t thinking about awards.”
Having already won three Best Awards for the same project, to receive international recognition was particularly meaningful, she said. “It’s good to see that it’s not only relevant in New Zealand. I can see that this topic is important internationally and I’m so happy for people [around the world] to know about my work.”
Dating back to 1958, the Good Design Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious international awards for design and innovation.
The Awards celebrate the best new products and services on the Australian market, excellence in architectural design, engineering, fashion, digital and communication design, design strategy, social impact design and young designers.
More than 55 Good Design Awards Jurors evaluated each entry according to a strict set of design criteria which covers ‘good design’, ‘design innovation’ and ‘design impact’. Projects recognised with a Good Design Award must demonstrate excellence in good design and convince the jury they are worthy of recognition at this level.
Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia: “Receiving a Good Design Award is a significant achievement given the very high calibre and record number of entries received in 2020. These inspirational winning projects give me hope and optimism that our design community will continue to innovate, no matter how challenging the world around us is.”
The 2020 Good Design Awards attracted a record number of submissions with an astonishing 835 design projects evaluated in this year’s international design awards.
Pick Details:
Awarded the Good Design Award Winner Accolade in the Next Gen NG: Service Design category in recognition for outstanding design and innovation.Designed By: Mona Gabr
Lecturers: Tammie Leong and Simon Nicholls
Programme leader: Jim Murray
Commissioned By: Media Design School
Grow Details:
Awarded the Good Design Award Winner Accolade in the Next Gen NG: Digital Design category in recognition for outstanding design and innovation.
Designed By: Dannah Angela Soriano, Erika Marasigan, Logan Ware, Yancong Guo
Lecturers: Simon Nicholls, Don Chooi, Trajano Leydet, Pritika Lal, Lucy Boermans.
Programme Leader: Jim Murray
Commissioned By: Media Design School, Auckland Art Gallery