One of the most respected and prestigious international design awards, Australia’s Good Design Awards celebrate the best new products and services on the Australian market.  Rewarding emerging areas of design including business model innovation, social impact and sustainability. 

This years Awards attracted nearly 700 projects for consideration, spanning 10 design disciplines including architecture, communication, digital, fashion, product, service, strategy, engineering and social impact.

Being announced a winner of the Good Design is an honour of the highest order. Amongst the record-breaking amount of innovative designs submitted were the eventual winners, who received their accolades on 11th of July at the 61st annual Good Design Awards Ceremony.

Good Design Award of the Year was the coveted top prize awarded to the visionary Inventia Rastrum 3D Bioprinter that is helping to cure cancer. Designed in Australia by Inventia Life Science and Design+Industry, the 3D Bioprinter is helping to cure cancer by building 3D cell structures which are then used to test a range of therapies. The impact of this on patient experience is potentially life-changing. The speed of delivering 3D cell models means researchers can conduct significantly more experiments, screen thousands of treatment drugs, and effectively turbo-charging their research into cancer treatment. It has the potential to revolutionise biomedical research and to print tissues, skin and organs in the future.

The inaugural Women in Design Award went to Executive Director of Industrial Design at General Motors Sharon Gauci, the first of Australian woman in the industry to hold her title.

Attracting more than 60 nominations, with an international jury panel of esteemed experts, the Women in Design Award was established this year in response to the significant gender imbalance within leadership roles in the design and creative industry, and to recognise and celebrate women who have made significant contributions to the industry.

In celebration of its tenth year bolstering the highest level of sustainable design practice, the Good Design Award for Sustainability was awarded to RangerBot, an underwater robot that is helping save the Great Barrier Reef. Designed by QUT and Designworks, this innovative design was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and is the world’s first vision-based underwater robotic system designed specifically for coral reef environments.

On the awards, Dr Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia, commented that “The Australian Good Design Award winners this year are an inspiring representation of the future. At the heart of all the winning projects is a problem (big or small) that was solved through clever, considered and meaningful design that will have a positive impact on our lives and our planet.”

Of this year’s 378 Good Design Award recipients, 255 were designed in Australia and 123 from overseas. The Awards attracted innovative entries from all corners of Australia and the world, including Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA.

To find out the other winners at the Good Design Awards, visit the website.