Perth based Australian Fine China, the only maker of porcelain in Australia and New Zealand, is currently using a number of artist-designers to move from being a stolid china manufacturer for railways and cafes to one whose products are seen in top flight restaurants in the big hotels, in classy tourist venues and now on the dining tables of the nation. They have some way to go to entice Australians to purchase the 'local product' for their homes but they are making steady progress.
Interview with Andrew Rogers, Director of the ARID industrial design group (within the University of Adelaide's Research precinct). They spoke about the seductive blurrings of boundaries between man and soft machine.
What landscape architects in Australia have been doing since about 1970 is to begin to address the Australian lanscape in all its extraordinariness and vastness - as a subject for design and interpretation in the creation not only of our settlements but all those places where we may leave our mark, even if we don't inhabit them.
In 1992 the Premier of WA initiated the Premier's Gift Commissioning Project in conjunction with the Crafts Council of WA inviting artists to design and produce protocol gifts and souvenirs within a lower price range, which though of exclusive design could be manufactured in multiples using light local industrial processes where appropriate.
Exhibition review Messy and Restless: Helene Czerny, Julie Duffield, Paul Hoban, Terri Hoskin, Derek O'Connor
Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide SA
1- 24 November 1996
Magabala Books, Australia's first indigenous publishing house takes its name from an indigenous vine that flourishes on the pindan soil of north western Australia. Sam Cook is the publisher's first indigenous designer. She talks with Mara Mann.
The exhibiting and collecting of contemporary Australian furniture design is a telling indicator of how we as a society regard design. Australian furniture has been seen at SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art - Gallery Trade Fair Chicago USA) since 1993.
Design for the new media encourages models which utilise multi-dimensional connectivities. Vertical layering of data is their area of exploration in comparison to the more conventional horizontal depiction of information on the page or in narrative cinema. The grammar of the interface designer has had to alter to accommodate random access and idiosyncratic hierarchies established by the user.
Whilst on a global scale Australia still dawdles on ecodesign, pockets of cutting-edge research and design are moving ahead with international recognition. Overview of events. In 1991 RMIT in Melbourne hosted the EcoDesign 1 Conference 1989-1992 Designers for the Planet, Perth WA Society for Responsible Design (1990 - ) NSW Re-Design Group Melbourne, Victoria (1991-93).