Good Design Awards announces new Women in Design Award

Australia’s prestigious Good Design Awards has announced a new Women in Design Award to be offered as part of the 61st annual awards, for which the call for entries is now open. Good Design Australia invites submissions of the best of Australian and international design spanning 10 design disciplines including architecture, communication, digital, fashion and social impact. Entries close 28 March 2019.

The Design for Sustainability Award also returns in 2019, celebrating its tenth year in recognising the highest level of sustainable design practice.

The inaugural Women in Design Award seeks to celebrate the achievements of female designers across the industry and the call for nominations will open on International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March 2019.

Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO, Good Design Australia says, “We are launching the Women in Design Award in response to the gender imbalance within leadership roles in the design industry. According to The American Institute of Graphic Arts, only 4-11 per cent of US senior leadership roles in design are held by women, despite the fact that half the of the industry is female.”

This award seeks to recognise and celebrate women who have made significant contributions to the industry and hopes to encourage a more diverse and equal representation within the industry and leadership roles in particular within design and the creative industries.”

The Good Design Awards is also calling for submissions for the Indigenous Designer Award, celebrating the important contribution that Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander designers make to Australian design across the spectrum of design disciplines and practice. The award was created to address the issues of appropriation and respectful representation of Indigenous culture in design practice and education and in 2018 was awarded to the Australian Indigenous Design Charter.

Australia’s annual Good Design Awards program is one of the oldest and most prestigious international design awards in the world, promoting excellence in design and innovation since 1958. It is recognised by the World Design Organization (WDO) as Australia’s peak international design endorsement program. The Good Design Award accolade, more commonly known as the Good Design Tick, is among the most respected and recognised international design endorsement symbols in the industry.

Dr Gien commented: “Our mission to showcase the very best in design and innovation across the full spectrum of design. Beyond creating better and more efficient products, services and spaces, good design has the potential to improve our quality of life.”

The Good Design Awards recognise the outstanding achievements of designers across 10 design disciplines spanning more than 30 categories: from the best new products and services on the market; excellence in architectural design; digital and communication design and emerging areas of design including design strategy, and design for social impact.

The Good Design Awards judging panel consists of leading international and Australian design experts who evaluate entries based on three overarching design criteria including Good Design, Design Innovation and Design Impact.

The Awards’ ultimate design accolade, Good Design Award of the Year, is granted to the overall winning product, service or project that represents ground-breaking design at an international level. Past winners have included Cochlear for the design and development of their revolutionary Cochlear Nucleus 24 Contour hearing implant system (2000); Australian designer Marc Newson for his Economy Class Seat for the Qantas A380 (2009); Hollywood Director, James Cameron for his Deepsea Challenger Submarine (2012); Tesla Model S (2015) and Flow Hive, a game-changing beehive design that produces honey with the turn of a handle (2016) and Facett, the world’s first modular hearing aid designed to look like a piece of jewellery (2018).

Entries for the 2019 Good Design Awards are now open and close on 28 March 2019.

Information on the Awards is via Good Design Australia’s website: good-design.org