Queensland Design Awards

The QDA presentation night was held on Friday last week. CMD sent a couple representatives along, we had no entries in this years competition but did supply a judge (Neil Davidson - the CMD design manager). It was an interesting night with some interesting awards being given. Firstly I have to congratulate Glen Bevan and his team at Infinity Design for the well earned win of a Gold Award for the brilliant and very technical Leica Geosystems 'Machine Automation' device. I also have to point out at the juncture that a gold award was also given to a well designed 'menu'.

The event is run by the DIA and has a strong focus on the creative arts. I find myself wondering why Industrial design is included in this awards competition. Industrial design has well and truly moved on from this. Our core business in not a creative industry.

Let me explain: Industrial design is in the business of innovation and intellectual property commercialisation. Therein lies the difference. Creative arts dealt with visual impressions which attract copyright protection at best. Whereas Product designers operate in the realm of intellectual property and the serious world of patents. You can't patent a menu, an interior, or a exhibition space. So what we have is two very different ways of looking at the world and ergo, two very different sets of criteria for assessment of a design's worthiness for an award.

I believe that it is confusing to run two completely divergent judging platforms in the one competition space. Particularly when the top level media banner for the competition places all the emphasis on 'creative' visual aspects of design. I believe that this is 'off' message for industrial design and does us no favours as an industry.