Elevating Design Excellence Through Global Collaboration

In the dynamic and interconnected landscape of design awards, collaboration and shared knowledge are one of the fundamental pillars that can help drive innovation and progress. It’s why design promotion organisations worldwide recognise the importance of forming strategic partnerships to leverage localised knowledge and strengths, share best practice and collectively elevate the standard of design excellence. 

Good Design Australia (GDA), as one of the leading advocates for cross-cultural design collaboration, has forged several MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) with design bodies across the globe – all who share the view that good design is at the core of innovation and that it can help improve society, the global economy, environment and culture for mutual benefit.

This includes a long-standing MOU with the Korean Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP) which was originally signed in 2005 and renewed in 2012. The MOU allows winners of the Australian Good Design Awards to also register for the Korean Good Design Award logo. A new partnership signed this year with the Design Business Chamber of Singapore (DBCS) provides Australian Good Design Award Winners with free entry into the Singapore Good Design (SG) Mark Awards.

GDA also recently renewed an MOU with the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP) which was first signed in 2013. JDP, a Promotional Member of the World Design Organization (WDO), hosted the 33rd World Design Assembly in Tokyo last year. The three-day event welcomed some of the design industry’s brightest minds both in-person and online under the theme: Design Beyond. 

Amidst workshops, inspiring panels, WDO Board elections and future World Design Capital announcements, GDA sat down with JDP to renew an MOU that was first established in 2013. It strives to enhance the collaboration and discussion surrounding design evaluation and design promotion processes.

We caught up with Good Design Australia’s Chair, Dr. Brandon Gien to dive deeper into the power of GDA’s across-the-pond relationships.

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How do the MOUs aim to impact the international design community? How will they foster greater connectivity or help drive design innovation within the wider international design community?

One of the central themes in all our MOUs is the recognition of design excellence across geographic boundaries. It’s about helping to provide award winning designers and businesses in our respective regions with additional promotional benefits so that they can reach a wider and more diverse audience. 

We believe that design award bodies that recognise and endorse good design are a positive influence in promoting the value and importance of professional design in the development of products, services and our built environment.

Through these MOUs, we share a common aspiration to promote the importance of professional design and the role it plays in creating a better, more prosperous and sustainable future. 

The spirit of each MOU is also centred around the peaceful coexistence of our respective Good Design Award registered trademarks and the importance of respecting that each award body has a unique and differentiated pathway to promote and advance good design in our region and internationally. 

These MOUs also allow us to uncover emerging technology and design trends in our regions and to share this information e.g. What are the main design challenges facing Singapore at the moment and what can Australia learn from these? What societal factors are driving design trends in Japan and what insights can our design community back home gain from this knowledge? 

What mutual benefits does GDA anticipate from these MOUs and how does each organisation stand to benefit from this partnership?

Where possible, we hope to draw upon each other’s networks to take part as judges in our respective Good Design Award programs so that we can learn from each other and improve. 

What is the best way to recognise and promote good design? What does each body use as their criteria for good design? How can we learn from each other to improve our own design award programs and create an environment of shared knowledge and progress? 

Our definition of good design is constantly evolving to ensure it best reflects what is considered good design in today’s world. For example, 20 years ago, sustainability was rarely a requirement for a project to be deemed good design. Today, we know that sustainability and circular design needs to be baked-in to the project at the very beginning to produce the best possible outcome. Collaborating with our international partners allows us to ensure we are setting best practices for good design at an international level and driving progress at a much larger scale. 

Looking beyond the immediate terms of the MOUs, what is the long-term vision for these partnerships? How does GDA envision these collaborations evolving over the next decade?

By working together collaboratively, we hope to improve our systems and processes and collectively help raise the benchmark for good design in our region and internationally. The more we collaborate, the better we’ll be at doing what we do – all in the best interests of recognising, rewarding and celebrating design excellence. 

The really unique thing about these collaborations is that they allow us all to tell the stories of our Award Winners to a much broader audience and to help spread the good design message as far and wide as possible.

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The 2024 Australian Good Design Awards are now open, with submissions closing at midnight Friday 3rd May. Join the Design Effect movement and push not only the world of the design, but our society, environment and future forward.

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