NZ designers buck GFC, entries into national design awards BeST yet in 21 year history

Being at the bottom of the world and in the middle of a recession has done nothing to stop New Zealand’s design industry flourishing – with the upcoming national BeST Design Awards shaping up to be the biggest and best showcase of New Zealand design EVER!

Designers around the country will be crossing their fingers this month in the hope of picking up one of the country’s most prestigious design accolades, with New Zealand’s pre-eminent national design awards – the BeST Design Awards – just around the corner.

Finalists of the awards – which are organised by the Designers Institute of New Zealand – have just been announced, with the winners to be revealed at a glittering black tie awards ceremony in Auckland on October 16.

If award entries are anything to go by, the recession hasn’t put adamper on the New Zealand design industry, with this year’s awards -which recognise New Zealand’s very best graphic, product and spatial(interior) design’s from the past year – shaping up to be the best yet.

With a whopping 590 designs received, award entries are at the highestlevel ever seen in the award programmes’ impressive 21 year history.

Cathy Veninga, CEO of the Designers Institute says that as well asseeing an increase in the number of entries, the quality of the designsentered this year were of the ‘highest standard ever seen’, which, shesays, is a reflection of the coming of age of New Zealand’s creativeindustries: “New Zealand has a pool of outstanding design talent asevidenced by the sheer number and quality of designs submitted intothis year’s awards. We’ve seen huge growth in the design industry overthe past few years, both in terms of the number of people employed inthe creative sectors and the quality of the designs being produced.”

In Auckland city alone, where the number of people working in thecreative sector currently stands at 15,991, employment in the designfield grew 63 per cent between 2000 and 2008.

Census 2008 figures show that nationally, employment in the visual arts and design industries increased by 2,798 since 2001.  

Veninga says that increasingly New Zealand design was receivinginternational recognition and praise: “Whereas previously people wouldlook to established design markets such as Milan, Paris or New York forexamples of great design, New Zealand is now making its mark, and hasdeveloped an international reputation for producing innovative, worldclass designs.”

Veninga says Kiwi designers were known for having a ‘can do’ attitudeand were able to adapt quickly to the changing market, which hadenabled many of them to thrive in what has been a tough environmentover the past 18 months.

This year’s BeST Design Award finalists can be viewed online www.bestawards.co.nz

The BeST Design Awards originated in 1988 and have been held annually since 1996.