- Published:
- Wednesday 31 March 2021
A world-first medical innovation that creates 3D digital images of the human eye has won the top prize at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Design Awards.
Held as part of Melbourne Design Week, the awards put a spotlight on Victorian designers and design students, also showcasing the ways businesses use design to make better products, processes, and experiences.
The winning design was created by Cobalt Design and Cylite to help specialists treat vision impairment, streamlining the diagnostic process by integrating the functions of five existing instruments into a single, automated platform. The machine also won the Best in Category Award for Product Design.
The other Best in Category winners were:
- Architectural Design – Architectus, Schmidt Hammer Lassen and the State Library of Victoria for State Library Victoria’s Vision 2020 Redevelopment, which has dramatically increased public space and utility at Australia’s oldest and busiest public library.
- Fashion Design - HoMie for their sustainability initiative Reborn, which transforms garments destined for landfill into desirable one-off pieces while raising money for charity.
- Communication Design – Sebastian White for a series of posters promoting the Isol-Aid Live Music Festival during isolation, which feature consumer goods like bulk toilet paper and hand sanitiser.
- Digital Design – Transpire with Vodafone Foundation for DreamLab, a mobile app that uses networked smartphones as a distributed supercomputer to process medical research data on cancer and COVID-19.
- Design Strategy – RMIT University, Public Journal and SBS for Bundyi Girri for Business. The world-first design-led set of frameworks, skills and techniques helps non-Indigenous people to cultivate the self-awareness required to be in active relationships with Indigenous peoples and Country.
- Service Design – Today for the Working with Children Checks for Indigenous Applicants program, which has expressed the WWCC framework with sensitivity to the needs, rights and culture of Indigenous Australians.
Best in Category in the Student Design category went to RMIT students Charlotte McCombe, Tanuj Kalra and Jui Deepak Apte for Aegis, a bio-constructed hospital PPE made from marine weeds, and to VCE student Hanna Gough for a craft kit that serves as an emergency economic tool and transforms recyclable waste.
The Premier’s Design Awards are a Victorian Government initiative delivered by Good Design Australia and this year’s winners were selected from a field of 97 finalists. For more, visit premiersdesignawards.com.au.
Quote attributable to Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson
“Cobalt Design and Cylite have shown us that great design can have a meaningful impact on people’s lives and not only spark creative thinking but shape our society for the better.”
Quote attributable to Parliamentary Secretary for Creative Industries Harriet Shing
“Great design pushes the boundaries of what’s possible so thank you to every finalist and winner for thinking big and aiming high.”