Winning Designs

SYDNEY, Monday: The winners of Australia’s annual Good Design Awards were announced today, with two Media Design School NZ 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.  

MDS GM Paul Brafield said: “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.”

Media Design programme leader Jim Murray said: “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.”

“It’s great to see our students and faculty being recognised internationally for their exceptional talent.”

Grow 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. 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 a creative, inclusive design responding to a real, identified and well-framed problem.”

Mona Gabr said: “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.”

Dating back to 1958, the Good Design 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.

CREDITS

Pick:
Designed By: Mona Gabr
Lecturers: Tammie Leong and Simon Nicholls
Programme Leader: Jim Murray
Commissioned By: Media Design School

Grow:
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

About Media Design School
Founded in 1998, MDS was the first school in New Zealand to recognise the growing influence of emerging creative industries and develop qualifications to fuel them with talented graduates. Based in the heart of Auckland’s CBD, they offer industry-endorsed degrees in Media Design, Game Development, 3D Animation and VFX, VR/AR, Creative Advertising, and Software Engineering.

• www.mediadesignschool.com