Best Effect
Convenor
Noel Brown DINZ
DNA
How good is New Zealand business at using design?
A foundation piece of research for the Better by design programme I was involved with identified three types of New Zealand companies: a very few who were sustainably, internationally competitive through design, a small number striving to be, and a large majority happy to be good enough for our Australasian domestic market. To reverse these proportions, design and business need to be much closer together and equally focused on results in the toughest market conditions - out in the wide world where we earn our collective living.
Richard Cutfield
Phil and Teds
How good is New Zealand design at delivering returns for New Zealand business?
Good design of itself won't deliver good returns - too often good design is hamstrung by adopting uncompetitive business models (eg. not making things where it makes sense to make them) or not having the other critical business pillars in place, namely; brand (& positioning), channels to market, supply chain and performance culture; to leverage good design commercially.
Nevil Gibson
National Business Review
4. What’s your vision for New Zealand design and business?
We still have a way to go in establishing this country as a design leader and international comparisons show this requires a lot of effort and resources. My vision is that we have a clutch of companies that can take a “designed in New Zealand” show through Asia, where outside of Japan we can be a leader and displace some over-rated Europeans.
Matt McKendry
Deloitte
How good is New Zealand design at delivering returns for New Zealand business?
I think there are two sorts of companies; those that are searching for the value proposition, and those that get it, and just get on it. We need to stop classifying design as department and focus more on how it can be imbued into our culture and behaviour.
Graphic
Convenor
Peter Roband FDINZ
pHd3
What influences you and your design practice?
Life! Taking stuff from one place and surplanting it in another. Mashing it up and it doesn't matter from where. Music, especially my favourite composer Phillip Glass, landscape architecture, architecture, street art/grunge, fine art, photography, YouTube clips, French car design in the late 70s/early 80s, just about anything EXCEPT graphic design magazines and books.
Peter Gilderdale DINZ
AUT
Why Design?
What are the alternatives? Leave things to chance? Wait for natural selection to kick in? Wait for philosophy to come up with a solution? To me design is what happens when you apply intelligence to an actual problem. Most of what people do, if it isn’t habit, involves design, but as designers we have the expertise to take what other people would muddle along with and resolve it efficiently and to maximum effect.
Paul van Barneveld
President, Australian Graphic Designer Association (AGDA)
What's interesting about New Zealand design?
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the two most recent Better by Design CEO Summits in Auckland. This has given me the opportunity to meet and interact with a number New Zealand design firms. New Zealand is doing some great things in design and it’s encouraging to see the local design community embracing the connection to their country, people and history to create more relevant design outcomes. A number of your design firms have also had success in Australia including at the AGDA Biennial Awards.
Paul Johnson DINZ
Designworks
What can design fix?
Mostly the things that we never considered annoying, expensive, difficult or missing until someone made them easier, attractive, cheaper, or more complete.
If design could fix rampant consumerism (and the knock-on effect of it's absence in the world economy) I'd be pretty stoked. What colour toothbrush do you want?
Heath Lowe DINZ
Special Group
Favourite piece of design, and why?
Friso Kramer's Revolt chair for De Cirkel, 1953. It was revolutionary in its use of folded steel legs; it used less material, which was advantageous in a resource-strapped post-war Europe, at the same time making it lighter and less expensive to transport; it also made the chair stronger. So it's my favourite kind of solution: win / win / win.
Anna Myers PDINZ
Alt Group
What's something you read on the internet and never forgot?
Find a hook or basis to start giving someone's values back to them visually – Paula Scher, from Hillman Curtis' Artist Series.
Gideon Keith PDINZ
Strategy Design & Advertising
What does the future bring?
Change. Today's horizon is tomorrow's foreground. Change pushes us forward whether it's aesthetic or technological, it's always moving which makes it constantly challenging.
Nga Aho
Convenor
Karl Wixon PDINZ; Vice President Designers Institute of New Zealand
WIKI Design & Consultancy Ltd
What's something you read or heard and never forgot?
The late Sir Apirana Ngata referring to Mātauranga Māori and Western Knowledge as two fishing grounds and urging us not to set our net in one fishing ground, but to set our net in between where fish from both grounds gather – his analogy was urging Māori to become proficient in both Māori and Western Knowledge –to draw the best from both to sustain ourselves and be full participants in society. I seek to do this in my own practice.
Noel Brown DINZ
DNA
What's interesting about New Zealand design?
Two things. First, like everything else, design here is defined by New Zealand’s size and remoteness, among developed countries we are unique. Being small yet complete and self contained means tiny design agencies here tackle challenges of a breadth and diversity no large offshore agency does. This generalism, this quick and dirty, fit for purpose leanness is our unique advantage if we choose to see it as such. The other of course is our bicultural structure. A renascent Tangata whenua in partnership with an increasingly diverse tangata tiriti is a context where unique approaches and solutions should appear.
Haare Williams
Auckland Museum
What's interesting about New Zealand design?
The lack of the integration of Maori design philosophy – eg Auckland Waterfront and Queen Street lack the quintessential elements that differentiate it from other cities … Auckland can be greater.
Product
Convenor
Tony Parker FDINZ; President Designers Institute of New Zealand
Massey University
What's interesting about New Zealand design?
The ongoing opportunity to help give substance to our identity, our geographic and cultural location, economic status and the need to make our way in a competitive world.
Andrew Withell PDINZ
AUT
What can design fix?
Any problem is a design problem. Having said that designers often over estimate the value/role of design. Great problem solving and innovation is usually the result of many people, many disciplines working together.
Gareth Lauchlan DINZ
Formworks
Why design?
Design for me is an outlet for my creativity and exploration. What other profession lets you draw all day and get paid for it.
Mike Jensen PDINZ
Fisher & Paykel Ltd
What influences you and your design practice?
Our customer, their experience, the environment that they live in.
Dominic Russo
Design Institute of Australia (DIA)
Favourite piece of design, and why?
One of my favourites is the Bialetti octagonal coffee maker. A true object of early 20th century mass production, still produced unchanged to this day. This rather utilitarian yet iconic design has transcended beyond it’s form to a cultural artefact.
Hamish Findlay
Ministry Science & Innovation (MSI)
Why design?
Why not! There can be no product innovation without it. Embedding design (both professionals and principles) from the kernel of an idea to product launch creates success – better products that people need.
Spatial
Convenor
Andrew Tu'inukuafe FDINZ
Creative Spaces
Favourite piece of design, and why?
Spalding NBA wide channel leather basketball – looks and feels beautiful, is perfectly functional and makes you play like a professional (if only in your own head); Gibson Les Paul electric guitar for the same reason.
Celia Visser PDINZ
Celia Visser Design
What can design fix?
Everything is designed & created, good design is enduring & very practical.
Joanne Cys
Past President Design Institute of Australia (DIA); University of South Australia
What's interesting about New Zealand design?
The number of excellent design programs at universities and institutes all over the country.
Nat Cheshire
Cheshire Architects
Why design?
It’s not as fragile as painting.
Tim Hooson FDINZ
Jasmax
What's the website you obsessively visit?
I do not view myself as obsessive … it is not helpful when expanding options and opportunities … however, www.nowness.com often inspires me with its beauty. Who saw the slow motion video of the Spanish dressage rider a year ago? Rivetingly beautiful synergy.
Ralph Roberts
Warren and Mahoney
What influences you and your design practice?
Context, urban and human interaction, commercial and community insights. The process of discovery, innovation, and the idea of refining complex design solutions into strong singular ideas underpin our approach.
Robb Donze
INZIDE Commercial
Favourite piece of design, and why?
The Human Body. Nothing can compare with its beauty, complexity and adaptability.
Anna-Marie Chin
Crosson Clarke Carnachan Chin Architects Ltd.
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