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Designers indulge in mutual back-patting as Best Awards dished out

Alt Group’s rebrand of the Auckland Art Gallery, Sons & Co’s website featuring disembodied limbs and Designworks’ slick packaging for Silver Fern Farms were among the
major winners at the 2012 Best Design Awards, the Oscars of the New Zealand
design world.

Organised by the
Designers Institute of New Zealand and held at a glittering event attended by
more than 700 designers at Auckland’s Viaduct Centre on Friday night, the
Best Design Awards recognise and celebrate the country’s best product, spatial,
graphic and interactive designs of the year.

This year an
impressive 760 entries were received for the awards, with more than 300 making
it through to the final cut.  Two
new awards were also introduced: the Ngā Aho Award, and the Best Effect Award.

Read on to find out who the supreme Purple Pin recipients were…

Product 

optiflow junior fisher and paykel healthcare best awardJudges awarded two Purple Pins, for the Les Mills Smartbar, and for the Optiflow Junior.

Designed by
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the Optiflow Junior is a breathing therapy which
delivers humidified air through the nose to babies suffering from breathing
difficulties.  Until recently only adult
cannulae or breathing tubes, using 40 year old technology, were available to
treat babies. The Optiflow Junior was researched in 50 hospitals in four
countries, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is currently launching the
product in the United States.

The product
judges, who included Dominic Russo, Victorian President of the Designers Institute
of Australia, said that Optiflow Junior was an “exceptional piece of design
work that demonstrates the power of a high-level human-centred approach to
design underpinned by significant ‘upfront’research, design insights and
technical development work”.

Most importantly, they said, it demonstrates leadership in the field, and revolutionises the care
of seriously ill infants.

Barbell design
also had not changed for decades. Fastening plates onto conventional bars is
slow and cumbersome for average gym goers, and standard plates when used on
their own are difficult to hold and control. So Les Mills and their design
team, headed by David Lovegrove of 4ormfunction in Christchurch, developed a
cutting edge ergonomic design that speeds up changing plates. As the judges
pointed out, Body Pump classes have just got faster with the Les Mills
Smartbar.

les mills smartbar best awardsThe SmartBar has
a head (the designers call it “the gator”) with retractable teeth at each end
that holds up to three weight plates. To change plates, the user just pulls the
release lever and slides them off, making transitions fast and seamless. 

The judges said the Smartbar, which
has a global patent pending, was an “exceptional, international quality piece
of product design work”.

“Les Mills has continued to evolve,
demonstrate leadership, but most importantly has continued to develop
international competitiveness through creativity, innovation and design. This
is a real New Zealand success story.”

Spatial

The winner was the Imperial Buildings and Imperial
Lane
project, a refurbishment of a neglected Auckland downtown space.

imperial lane best awards

Built between 1886 and 1911, the
Imperial Buildings are a rich mix of heritage spaces and building. The
designers, Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon, of architectural firm Fearon Hay, were
commissioned to restore and upgrade the down at heel buildings.

The backbone of
the project included a new laneway for Auckland: Imperial Lane, which links
Fort and Queen Streets. The lane, which is used by hospitality tenants, is
paved in the same basalt used in surrounding streets and is open to the public,
until crafted steel gates close at night.

The judges, who included Joanne
Cys, immediate past president of the Design Institute of Australia, said that Fearon
Hay’s designs for these formerly neglected spaces were “warm, convivial and
authentic.”

The judges said that the project
“sets a leadership example of how we should shape our cities … The Imperial Buildings (and Lane) is a game
changer and a tremendous gift to the city of Auckland.”

Graphics

auckland art gallery best awards 2012Auckland design studio, Alt Group, took this out for its identity project
for Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, based on the idea of
demystifying art through language.

Alt Group, led
by design director, Dean Poole, cleverly used text to communicate the gallery’s
collections in different ways to different audiences. The design project created
a language, which involved the creation of a simple text layout – the instantly
recognisable black-and-red phrases, spliced through with ‘art’ or its Maori
translation ‘toi’ – to tell distilled messages and stories.   

With this
identity applied across the entire organisation, from print to digital to
physical collateral, the graphics judges said the gallery’s graphic design
successfully goes far beyond just a logo.

The judges, who
included Paul van Barneveld, president of the Australian Graphic Design
Association said: “The Auckland Art Gallery identity was a pure and intelligent
response to a brief that could have otherwise been quite ordinary. The visual
link back to the Maori culture was beautifully resolved without being obvious.
The use of language throughout the brand application was very clever in its
execution and is something that can grow with the gallery.”

Interactive

sons and co silo theatre best awardsChristchurch design company, Sons & Co, nabbed the Purple Pin for the website design
for Auckland theatre company, Silo Theatre.

Judges said Sons & Co.’s reinterpretation of the Silo
Theatre website was engaging, on par with international typographic standards,
and reflected the art company’s cutting edge identity.

“The playfulness
of the brand is perfectly embodied in the site’s interactive nature.  Its formal visual design gives way to a
whimsical approach to movement and content staging.”

In line with a
complete identity overhaul, the re-design forgoes the expected theatre
clichés in favour of a consistent and contemporary company brand
throughout the
year – the recognisable peep-show involving floating limbs protruding
from a
pastel pink background. The site has featured on many international
design and
culture blogs including the United Kingdom’s It’s Nice That.

Ngā Aho Award

best awards nga ahoThis award, in partnership with Maori design organisation, Ngā
 Aho, was won by  Ngā Purapura, designed by Wellington architects, Tennent + Brown.

Te Wananga-O
Raukawa, in Otaki, is a tertiary institution that focuses on improving physical
wellbeing for Maori. The institution required a new building which included two
sports courts, a cardio gym, nutrition training kitchen, classrooms and
offices. Tennent+Brown used the holistic model of Maori health Te Whare ta Wha
(four sides of a house) to design the form of the building. This model
addresses the need for physical (tinana), mental (hinengaro), spiritual
(wairua) and social (whanau) aspects of life to all be in balance.
Tennent+Brown’s design represents this model with a folded roof which creates
various spaces against the neutral form of the sports hall.

Best Effect 

best effect best awardThe Best Effect Award, for effectiveness of design which contributes
to a company’s bottom line, was won by Designworks for Silver
Fern Farms
.  

The aim of this
four year project was to rebrand and transform South Island meat processor
South Island PPCS into marketing oriented, export driven company, Silver Fern
Farms. Research showed that consumers would pay more per kilo for a highly
branded product, with distinctive uncluttered packaging, and with a choice of
retail packs sized for smaller families and couples. Boldly labelled “Proudly
New Zealand made” Silver Fern Farms range of premium lamb cuts was launched in
September, 2011 into some 220 Tesco stores across the United Kingdom.

The judges said:
“Silver Fern Farms is one of New Zealand’s largest exporters in one of our most
critical sectors. They have used design to get closer to their end customers
and increase the relevance of their product to capture more of the value
in the farm to plate value chain.”

Special awards

Two other special  Black Pins were also
presented during the evening. The first, the John Britten Award, given to an individual who has contributed the
most nationally and internationally to further New Zealand design, was
presented to Wellington architect, Ian
Athfield
. Athfield is known for his distinctive public buildings in
Wellington, such as the Telecom building and Civic Square in Wellington, the
library with its sculpted nikau palms, and Adam Art Gallery at Victoria
University. But his life’s work has undoubtedly been his own house, Athfield
House, which spills down the hill in Khandallah like a 21st century
crusader castle.

The other Black Pin, the Designers Institute’s
special award for Outstanding Achievement, went to Designworks CEO Sven Baker for his contribution to the
Designers Institute and to the New Zealand design industry in general. Baker
leads a team of more than 100 in three Designworks offices in Wellington,
Auckland and Sydney and has led the company into working for some of New
Zealand’s top companies, including Air New Zealand, Kiwibank, Silver Fern Farms
and Auckland Airport.

Other winners – Gold Pins

Spatial

Fearon Hay Architects for the Imperial Buildings

Koko Creative for Silo Market

Fearon Hay Architects for Imperial Lane

Fearon Hay Architects for Fabric Warehouse

Salmond Reed Architects for St Thomas’ Chapel

Studio Pacific Architecture for MOTAT Aviation Display Hall

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer in association with Paul Rolfe Architects for Cloudy Bay Shack

Switch for Platinum Sports Co.

Jessica Mentis for Domestic | Monument

Product

Avanti Design Technology for Avanti Corsa DR

4ormfunction for Les Mills Smartbar

Treology for Umber Chair

Fisher & Payhel Healthcare for Optiflow Junior

Goodnature for Automatic Humane Rat and Stoat Trao

Gallagher Group for Multi-Strand Gate Kit

Alastair Warren for Breathe.Easy Asthma Management

Nick Graham for BackYak

Graphic

Strategy Design and Advertising for AFS Company Profile

Luke Wood for Head Full of Snakes

Inhouse for HOME magazine

Klim Type Foundry for The Founders Grotesk Family

Alt Group for The Social Kitchen

Alt Group for Auckland Art Gallery

Alt Group for Auckland University Press

Alt Group for Silo Theatre

Special Group for OOB Organic Ice Cream

Fracture for Living Earth

Strategy Design and Advertising for Thinking Book #3

Tamsin Fraser for Il/legible Type

Interactive

Cactuslab for Letterboxd

Resn for neverstopneversettle

Resn for The Camry Effect

Springload for Klim Type Foundry

Sons & Co for Silo Theatre

Marcus Brown for Who Is Thomas Revell?

Assembly for V Motion Project

Ngā Aho

Tennent + Brown Architects for  Ngā Purapura

Click Suite for HIKO: Legends carved in light

Best Effect

DNA for Powershop

Designworks Auckland for Silver Fern Farms

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