Design Research and Social Impact: Two new Good Design Awards for Meld Studios
What are the Good Design Awards?
The Good Design Awards are the highest honour for design and innovation in the country and reward projects across 12 design disciplines and 30 subcategories.
The 2021 Good Design Awards attracted a record number of submissions with 933 design projects evaluated by more than 70 Australian and international Jurors, including designers, engineers, architects and thought leaders.
Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia said:
“Receiving an Australian Good Design Award is testament to embedding design excellence at the heart of a product, service, place or experience. Although 2021 continues to be another challenging year, it is incredibly inspiring to see designers and businesses working together to find innovative, customer-centric design solutions to local and global challenges and to see them recognised and rewarded for their efforts through these prestigious Awards.”
What did Meld Studios win awards for?
This year we received recognition in the Design Research and Social Impact categories, for our work with the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI) and the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
Our approach and outcomes with the EPA are described here: Co-designing how to communicate the risks of illegally dumped asbestos
The Good Design Awards Jury commented:
“Great example of design being used in a way that increases the EPA getting the outcomes they want and also better protecting the people who otherwise may have resisted engaging. The idea was well researched and communicated and ultimately scalable. Terrific process and project. Overall, a really impressive example of design for impact and a standout project that ticks every box for good design in this category. Congratulations.”
Our approach and outcomes with ACMI are described here: Understanding visitor experience to inform ACMI's architectural and digital transformation
The Good Design Awards Jury commented:
“The research methods and procedures were expertly executed and the resulting journey map was a piece that served as a valuable guide for this project. The value of the research to the organisation is clear. It helped inform master planning, leading to design and architectural work, staff process changes and organisational value upgrades. The rigorous research methodology applied is transferable to other domains as well. Well done. ”
Acknowledgements
Well done to our ACMI team:
- Seb Chan, ACMI
- Kimberley Crofts, Meld Studios
- Jack Huston, Meld Studios
- Steve Baty, Meld Studios
Well done to our EPA team:
- Renee Fairhurst and Carly Hulme, NSW EPA Behaviour and Education Team
- Paul Merrell, Meld Studios
- Landowners across NSW who participated in this work
What other awards has Meld won?
This brings our total number of Good Design Awards to 11.
We’ve won Best in Class for Service Design three times, and were the overall Good Design Awards winner in 2018 (Good Design Award of the Year).
We’re so proud to receive this recognition. We're even prouder that it's for work that has a positive social, environmental and economic impact.