culture.gov.au
Connecting you with Australian culture online
Top 10 Stories
Australian weather and the seasons The Australian Gold Rush European discovery and the colonisation of Australia Sydney Olympic Games, 2000 Convicts and the British colonies in Australia Great Barrier Reef Australian Indigenous cultural heritage The Great Depression Modern Australian fashion Australian food and drinkAustralian design
Damian McDonald, Designer Robert Foster, principal of F!NK and Co. with his signature Water Jug, in production since 1994. Image courtesy of Craft ACT.
Coats, tiaras, mansions, magazines, teaspoons, skate parks or car seats - all of these objects could have been created within the world of design. There are a number of professions in Australia that contribute to a diverse design industry, including architects, interior designers, landscape architects, graphic designers, jewellers, industrial designers, fashion designers, furniture makers and textile artists.
The Australian industry
Australia is sometimes perceived as a conservative market for design products; however, local designers constantly reveal themselves as imaginative, ambitious and interested in engaging the imagination of the public through commercial production and artistic exhibitions. One of the many challenges within the design industry is balancing creativity with the demands of cost-effective and innovative construction.
Sources of design inspiration
Designers often come to their craft from diverse backgrounds and find inspiration for colour, texture and form in the most unlikely places. They draw their influence not only from historical and international origins, but also from sources such as the Australian natural environment, seasonal variations, urban architecture, literature, theatre and street culture. The analysis of everyday objects and activities is often central to the design process, as designers strive to produce simple and elegant solutions for ordinary situations.
Media and institutional support
Publishers have had an important role in encouraging both emerging and established designers and showcasing work outside the commercial environment. Publications including Art & Australia, Architecture Australia, Monument and InStyle offer the general public an opportunity to browse through contemporary ideas. Media such as television, newspapers and radio, offer vital opportunities for encouraging a national appreciation of local designers. In every city in Australia, galleries can be found that exhibit the work of current practitioners or celebrate the influence of key historical figures such as Walter Burley Griffin, Avis Higgs, Florence Broadhurst, Fred Ward, Sam Atyeo, Marion Hall Best and Grant Featherston. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has adopted the display and analysis of design as its central objective.
International influence
Looking over the history of design in Australia, it becomes apparent that there has been an ongoing tension between the appeals of Australia's distinct geography and comparatively low populations, and the restrictions of a small product market, a lack of imported materials and limited opportunity for international influence.
Local materials
The use of Australian materials for construction is particularly relevant to timber furniture design, as this is one raw material that is easy to access. Often influenced by the work of Fred Ward and Douglas Snelling, Australian designers continue to explore the potential of unusual and regionally distinct wooden forms.
The House of Tomorrow
Post-war production of plastics and composites (combined materials) dramatically changed what was possible for designers in the 20th century. These new materials set off a preoccupation in the 1950s and 60s with the scientific future or the House of Tomorrow. This theme is frequently associated with a modernist era in Australian design.
Grant Featherston
Grant Featherston chair. Image courtesy of ABC Radio National.
Devoted to promoting a philosophy of good design and opposing the stifling forces of conservatism, Grant and Mary Featherston achieved success in the 1950s with an alternative to the over-stuffed, bulky lounge suites of the pre-war period. The now-famous contour chair can be still found in living rooms, fashionable design stores and museums.
The chair continues to be an example of molding furniture to the human body. In Australian Furnishing Trade Journal, Gwen Atkinson relates the genesis of this form in a humble tram ticket:
Travelling citywards one morning, he absently twisted and folded his tram ticket and suddenly the answer lay in his hand, in the small, torn piece of paper. Atkinson, Gwen. Australian Furnishing Trade Journal, March 1955.
The flexibility of plywood offered Featherston the opportunity to experiment with bending wood whilst maintaining strength.
Contemporary practice
The latter part of the 20th century was a period of remarkable growth in the Australian design world. In 1980, the appearance of Tony Fry's influential reference book Design History Australia reminded professionals of the need to consider design within a social and economic context of Australian history. There are a number of Australian designers currently achieving success and developing strong reputations within the fiercely competitive global context.
Marc Newson
Marc Newson, interior of jet. Image courtesy of Marc Newson.
Marc Newson's projects may not be familiar to many Australians, however as a young designer he quickly established himself in the European design market. Born in Hornsby, New South Wales, Newson has a trademark style of anthropomorphism, where his colourful furniture and interiors reflect the fluid, organic geometry found in the natural environment. Some journalists have given Newson the label surfie-style, and the interplay of rigorous engineering and curvaceous beauty in his work has been compared to the challenges of building a surfboard. One of his most distinct works is the three-legged aluminium Lockheed Lounge, a limited edition piece that attracted international attention and which is now manufactured by a Sydney-based furniture company, Basecraft.
Collette Dinnigan
An awareness of the importance of business acumen and customer service is a crucial aspect of fashion designer Collette Dinnigan's success story, complimenting skills honed through training at Wellington Polytechnic in New Zealand and the costume department at the Australian Broadcasting Authority. While a network of friends and relatives provided finance in 1992 when she couldn't find institutional investors for her first store, Dinnigan now runs her business without external investors. Her delicate, finely tailored creations have increasingly caught the eye of Hollywood stars and her global sales reach continues to expand with the recent opening of a store in Los Angeles. Twice yearly Parisian parades of her signature label 'Collette Dinnigan' have been in place since 1996, and a London store opened its doors in 2000. However, Sydney remains the home base for her business.
Mambo
In 1984, Dare Jennings founded a clothing brand, Mambo, with a flamboyant aesthetic generated through humour, politics, music, art and an interest in the symbols that celebrate Australia. Collaboration with graphic and visual artists continued to be a vital inspiration for the company, resulting in an stable of multi-talented individuals including Reg Mombassa, Cathy Glassby, Ben Frost, Robert Moore, Jim Parry and Beci Orpin. The personality and principles of the brand are expressed not only through their surfwear designs, but also in CD compilations, sponsorship of talented surfers and fund-raising for charities. A Sydney-based company, Gazal, bought Mambo in 2000, freeing the eclectic band of original artists from the pressures of running a business with stores and distributors across Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Ken Cato
Beginning in the 1970s, Ken Cato built an international reputation as a talented graphic designer capable of powerfully articulating a concept or brand through visuals, objects, interiors and landscapes. His design practice, Cato Purnell Partners has offices in Australia and New Zealand, and has been the force behind memorable graphics such as the Australia Made logo and the Qantas Airways logo. AGIdeas, an event initiated by Cato in 1991, continues to be one of the world's largest annual student design conferences and is a valuable forum for encouraging, inspiring and promoting young Australian talent.
Melbourne's Eastern Freeway sound barriers
The impact of roads on the Australian landscape is increasingly a source of concern and interest to design practitioners. Freeways may appear to be an unlikely environment for award-winning design, however the concrete noise attenuation barriers along Melbourne's Eastern Freeway won the 1998 Royal Australian Institute of Architects' urban design award and the project has continued to collect accolades for the architectural practice Woods Bagot. The work reflects the intersection of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, houses and landscape within a freeway and its surrounds. Influenced by the sculpture of Jeanne and Claude Christo, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson, the architects manipulated the shape of an arc to create a three-dimensional connection between the road and the landscape. The sound barrier twists alongside the road as a continuous and rhythmic accompaniment to driving, rather than a shield or simple pattern.
Garden of Australian dreams
An unusual garden is nestled within the contemporary architecture of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra designed by architectural practice Ashton Raggatt & McDougall in collaboration with Peck von Hartel Trethowen. The Garden of Australian Dreams contains very few plants, lawn or water. It is an undulating yet hard landscape created from layered maps and symbols of Australia. The ground pattern is composed from two main map sources: a standard, English-language map of Australia and Horton's map of Indigenous Australian language boundaries. However, there are many other words, images and references embedded within the design. Writing, power, forgery, cartography, colonisation and the 'signature' were all ideas that folded into this small but intellectually rich landscape.
Future directions
Phonelescope 2000, a new type of speaker by Adam Donovan. Image courtesy of Australian Network for Art and Technology.
An interest in the possible influences between art, science, and technology is a recurring theme in the work of many contemporary designers. Asking how the body relates to furniture, jewellery, clothes or space is one way of exploring new possibilities for design. Through the use of computer software, innovative manufacturing techniques and new materials, designers continue to challenge the ways in which design can affect many aspects of living in Australia and overseas.
Related Culture and Recreation Portal Stories
Useful links
- Arts Domain
- Australian Centre for the Moving Image
- Australia: Designs
- ABC Arts Online - Design
- DIGIT Expo and Conference 2004
- Australia Innovates - an online guide to innovation in Australia's industries: Powerhouse Museum
- Ideas With Wings - a radio series exploring innovation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- Melbourne Fashion Festival
- Mercedes Australian Fashion Week
- Australian Visual Arts & Crafts Gateway
- HSC Technology Syllabus Support - Powerhouse Museum
- Lab.3000 Digital Design
- Digital EcoLab
- AG Ideas Conference
- 20th Century Furniture - Exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia
Design awards
Galleries and museums
- Powerhouse Museum
- Australian Museums Online
- National Library of Australia Collection
- National Gallery of Victoria Collection
- Object - Australian centre for craft and design
Organisations for designers
- Australian Network for Art and Technology
- Craft South
- Craft Victoria
- Victorian Woodworker's Association
- Craft Australia
- Design Institute of Australia
- Australian Graphic Design Association
- Australian Institute of Landscape Architects
- Australian Institute of Landscape Designers and Managers
- The Royal Australian Institute of Architects
- Australian Costumers' Guild
- Jewellers Association of Australia
- Australian Forum of Textile Arts
- Australian Textile & Surface Design
References used in the preparation of this story
- Atkinson, Gwen, Australian Furnishing Trade Journal, March 1955.
- Bogle, Michael (ed.), Designing Australia: Readings in the History of Design, Pluto Press, Armadale, NSW, 2002.
- Fry, Tony, Design History Australia, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1988.
- Lane, Terence, 'Grant Featherston', Featherston Chairs exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1988.
Search over 3,500 Australian websites for information about:
Last updated: 17th March 2008
The Portal welcomes contributions and feedback from readers about Australian Stories. To provide feedback on this article, please email the Stories Editor, StoriesEditor at culture dot gov dot au.
If you can see this message, you are probably not seeing this site in the way it was designed. This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS2) to control the way in which elements are displayed on the page.
You will still be able to access everything in this site, but we do recommend you upgrade your browser to a more recent, standards compliant, browser.