Fresh Heirs

Sun Herald

Sunday July 1, 2007

Stephen Lacey

Design students are leading the way with cutting-edge creations. Stephen Lacey looks at the institutions shaping them.

DESIGN courses are the incubators for tomorrow's star designers. Although a few industrial designers may be self-taught, the vast majority are shaped by the institutions they attend.

Not only do the courses provide fledgling designers with basic skills, technological know-how and access to the tools of the trade, they also foster a hotbed of creativity, providing bright young things bristling with ideas with a sounding-board for feedback.

The design courses also provide access to myriad scholarships and grants, plus national and international design competitions such as Bombay Sapphire's student prize, the SMH Young Designer of the Year Award, the Australian Design Awards - Dyson Student Awards, and Electrolux Design Lab, which can often launch a stellar career.

Many young design students look to home-grown success stories such as Marc Newson for inspiration.

Newson studied jewellery and sculpture at Sydney College of the Arts (SCOA), where he started experimenting with furniture design.

He graduated in 1984 and was awarded a grant from the Australian Crafts Council. Now he is regarded as one of the top designers in the world, collaborating with companies such as Samsonite, Alessi and Qantas. Newson still gives the occasional guest lecture at SCOA.

Student success

A bachelor of design in industrial design is a four-year, full-time university course. "There's a lot of work involved, but when you're passionate you enjoy what you do," says Oya Demirbilek, the program head for the department of industrial design at the University of NSW.

Recently, second-year industrial design students at UNSW were asked to create 30 toothbrush ideas each in four hours, as rapid concept generation is a fundamental part of their skills base. Some of the handles designed had integrated clocks, so the user could tell how long they need to brush for.

Meanwhile, fourth-year students were asked to design a torch powered by hand cranking, rethinking the market and trying to establish a new niche for this environmental technology. The target market varied from utility tools for camping to a designer lifestyle-accessory for a Ferrari owner.

"Of course, our students need to know what's happening in the market, so to a large extent the market, the developments in technology and future trends are the important elements driving our designs," Demirbilek says. "A design has to solve a real problem and fulfill a real need, as well as having a potential market."

And speaking of the future, do we really need another $5000 status chair? Apparently not. Demirbilek says her students are currently exploring the kind of technology that will allow people to manufacture their own products at home, easily and affordably.

Way of the future

"Three-dimensional printers will become domesticated, in the same way that laser printers have become domesticated," Demirbilek says.

"People will be able to download designs - whether it be cutlery or furniture - from their home computer and then print them out in a plastic-based medium, which can be assembled.

"Later, the plastic can be recycled to create something different."

So your standard paper printer will be more like a flat-pack printer, whereby you print out, say, a piece of plastic that is then folded into a set design.

UNSW design students have been leading the way in recent years.

In 2004, a team of UNSW students was awarded first place in the international Electrolux Design Lab competition in New York for Rockpool, a waterless dishwasher in which carbon dioxide is used in a closed-loop operation to clean the dishes.

At the recent Australian Design Awards - Dyson Student Awards, Paul Owen, Ringo Fan and Wilson Du, all from UNSW, took out gold, silver and bronze, respectively, with their graduate projects. This followed the university's success at last year's awards, where Tricia Ho and Julie Frost took out gold and bronze.

Owen's project is the Powercleat, a comfortable method of holding and adjusting small fine lines on sailing vessels. Fan's Viso is a system of illuminated handlebar grips and gloves to promote safer cycling in the dark. And Du's Sentinel is a hose clamp device for use at a fire scene.

Recycle and reuse

Over at the University of Technology, Sydney, the head of the school of design, Douglas Tomkin, says one of the biggest issues his young charges have to grapple with is thinking about what happens to the products they design after they are no longer needed.

"They are aware of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive coming out of Europe," Tomkin says. "The general idea behind WEEE is, if you make it, you take it back."

This means that when it comes to electronic items, young designers need to create designs that are easily disassembled and recycled.

Tomkin stresses that the course is about making sure designers meet the needs of the community and this includes not just the potential user, but also the manufacturer, retailer and distributor. "Anyone who has a stake in the product really needs to be considered at the design stage," he says.

Many of the projects Tomkin's students work on are directly associated with a manufacturer.

"At the moment we are designing door furniture - handles, locks and coat hooks, for a well-known Australian manufacturer," he says.

"In the past we've worked with Freedom Furniture, designing a new range. They provide us with a brief and a user profile.

"It's a fairly common thing, especially in our students' final year."

Tomkin says many of his students are fascinated with new, lightweight materials that are emerging and are using them in unusual ways.

This is helping to kick along the whole retro revolution, whereby students are taking historical forms and reinventing them for modern living. Tomkin cites graduate student Frag Woodall with his Vissy Credenza (manufactured by Woodmark) as a case in point. In fact, Woodall may just be one of the most exciting young graduates to emerge in many years.

"He's definitely one to watch, there's no question about it," Tomkin says.

"Frag is a very hardworking guy, who is interested in new processes and new materials."

Woodall has gained most of his attention through entering (and usually winning) competitions.

Recently, he won the Object Gallery's New Design 2007 award for Everglide - a portable, collapsible bicycle that folds down into a backpack.

He was awarded first place in the 2005 Cormack Packaging competition with a sports water bottle, and won the inaugural Bombay Sapphire student prize for innovative design with his Ilium chair.

It's no surprise he should be picked up by the respected Australian furniture manufacturer Woodmark, which now sells a number of his designs.

Design competitions certainly have a part to play in launching careers such as Woodall's. Tomkin says his students are inundated with offers to enter competitions, both local and global.

"In some cases they are very high profile and valuable, such as the New Design Object Award," Tomkin says.

"But there is often a conflict, because if students are devoting time to entering competitions, maybe they are neglecting their university work. Some of the competitions have very specific briefs, and that's not always compatible with the course work."

However, Tomkin concedes that when his students do well in competitions, it reflects well on UTS.

Rising stars

TAFE NSW, South Western Sydney Institute, is home to the highly regarded Lidcombe Design.

"A lot of our students are doing really great things," Kathy Marshall, the head teacher at Lidcombe Design, says. She names Ben McMahon as a rising star.

McMahon, who completed his advanced diploma in product design in 2006, was the only Australian shortlisted in an international competition sponsored by Bisque Radiators and Design Boom.

There were 3000 entries from 88 countries. McMahon's Cells is a modular assembly radiator that allows for numerous honeycomb pattern configurations, to fit a variety of spaces.

McMahon is also TAFE NSW's state medallist in both product design and advanced product design diplomas.

Lidcombe Design's interior decorating students also happened to have one of the more thoughtful displays at the 2007 HIA Sydney Home Show. In a show characterised by the usual suspects, producing predictable results (yawn), it was refreshing to see an environmentally sustainable and yet quintessentially Australian room.

The main instigator behind the design was student Ava Thomson. She used recycled newspaper flooring, recycled material wall hangings and simple furniture and lighting created by Lidcombe's furniture design students.

Sydney's top five

design institutions

1. Lidcombe TAFE - there are several courses on offer, including two-year diplomas in both furniture design and interior decoration, and three-year advanced diplomas in product design and in interior design. Phone (02) 9643 4501 or see www.swsi.tafensw.edu.au.

2. UNSW - bachelor of industrial design, a four-year full-time course. Phone (02) 9385 4799 or see www.unsw.com.au.

3. UTS - bachelor of design in industrial design; bachelor of design in interior design; bachelor of design in fashion and textiles; bachelor of design in visual communication. Four years full-time. Phone (02) 9514 8913 or see www.uts.edu.au.

4. Sydney College of the Arts - bachelor of visual art (three-year full-time course). Plus a variety of short courses - such as glass making. Phone (02) 9351 1104 or see www.usyd.edu.au/sca.

5. University of Western Sydney - bachelor of design and technology (three years full-time); bachelor of industrial design (four years full-time). Phone 1800 897 669 or see www.uws.edu.au.

© 2007 Sun Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home