Alt Group wins four Red Dot Design Awards

Auckland based multidisciplinary design firm, Alt Group, is celebrating yet another significant international awards haul, with the company picking up four communication design awards and two nominations for the Grand Prix award at one of the design industry’s largest and most prestigious international competitions – the red dot awards.

Alt Group beat out more than 6,112 entries submitted from 42 countries throughout the world to take home two highly esteemed ‘red dot: best of the best’ (best of category) awards for their work for boutique Auckland based law firm Hudson Gavin Martin, and iconic New Zealand furniture manufacturer, Formway.

Recognising the “highest design quality”, only 56 ‘red dot: best of the best’ awards were given out at this year’s red dot: communication design awards, which were announced yesterday (Wednesday, August 12).

The Hudson Gavin Martin project – which saw Alt Group designingeverything from the firm’s branding, corporate artwork, printadvertising and collateral – has already won the company a bevy ofnational and international design awards, including a Silver at the2009 Cannes Design Lions, two Pencils at the One Show Design Awards anda Gold Cube at New York’s ADC Awards.

Formway Furniture’s Hum Research Book – Alt Group’s other ‘red dot:best of the best’ award-winning project – has also received a slew ofinternational accolades, including Gold at the recent Graphis DesignAwards and a finalist nomination in the editorial category of the UK’sesteemed Design Week Awards.

Both the Hum Research Book and Hudson Gavin Martin project have beennominated for a ‘red dot: grand prix’ award – a special distinctionthat is given to category winners whose work is judged “particularlyoutstanding”. Just five ‘red dot: grand prix’ prizes were presented in2008. This years ‘red dot: grand prix’ winners will be announced at anaward ceremony later in the year.

Adding to their two ‘red dot: best of the best’ wins, Alt Group alsotook home two ‘red dots’ – a quality label that distinguishes workswhich have been certified to have “very high design standards”.

The ‘red dot’ quality label was presented to Alt for their work forHawke’s Bay based Farmgate Wines and their Hudson Gavin Martin ©h®is™asproject.

The recent wins cap off what has been a hugely successful internationalawards season for the firm, which has seen them pick up 31international accolades in 2009.

Alt Group creative director, Dean Poole, said that winning a red dotaward was a great achievement for New Zealand design: “Picking up notone but four of one of the most prestigious accolades in the designindustry validates our team’s commitment to design excellence and is agreat endorsement for New Zealand design on the international stage.”