Product Design – 2023 Best in Class Winners

Each year, the Australian Good Design Awards Jury deliberates over hundreds of incredible innovations entered into the Awards’ Product Design category. Within nine sub-categories, the Jurors look for excellence in product and industrial design, honouring projects that improve quality of life and contribute to better economic, social and environmental outcomes.

Each project is assessed to a specific set of criteria that covers good design, design innovation and design impact. The diversity of sub-categories invites unique entries from industries like sport, medicine, agricultural and transport, and all are evaluated in-line with the particulars of their field.

In 2023, there’s a genuine buzz surrounding the Product Design category. This isn’t only because the Good Design Award of the Year – the Awards’ most prestigious accolade – was awarded to a product design innovation, but because the calibre of projects has once again exemplified the positive impact the product and industrial design space can make to people and our world.

Keep reading to discover the Best in Class Winners for each Product Design sub-category.

Sports and Lifestyle

The Avatar Dive Mask

Design + Industry, Wētā Workshop & John Garvin

Image: Mark Fellman© 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The Sports and Lifestyle sub-category awards excellence in products used for recreational and professional sporting, including equipment and apparel. Lifestyle products are also recognised as part of this sub-category, which includes children’s goods and educational products.

In 2023, the Australian Good Design Awards Jury named the Avatar Dive Mask and Life Support System as the Best in Class Winner in the sub-category. Design + Industry were engaged in a collaborative project to design and build dive masks and equipment that would align with Director James Cameron’s artistic vision of Avatar 2: Way of Water, all while being fully functional for long periods of underwater filming. The mask is complete with safety, visibility and communication features, making it easier for the cast and crew to work comfortably and efficiently.

Domestic Appliances

Sanso EvOne

David Sloan Kruse

Image: Lucas Allen

Beautiful appliances can help transform your house into a sanctuary you’re proud to call home. It’s what the Domestic Appliances sub-category celebrates, recognising excellence in products like barbecues, air conditioners and electrical goods that bring value to people’s lives.

The Sanso EvOne – a world-first air-purifying light – was named 2023 Best in Class Winner for Domestic Appliances. The ceiling-mounted device works by improving air circulation with an interior fan. It’s fitted with a HEPA filter and ioniser, which simultaneously pull dust particles out of the air. Through pollution-monitoring technology, this adaptable design is ideal for those who suffer from allergies and asthma and want to maximise their floor space.

Automotive and Transport

BruderX EXP-8

Tom O’Connor, Jasper McPhee, Nick Malt & Dan Bosschieter

Image: BruderX

From speedy electric cars to stunning watercrafts, the Automotive and Transport sub-category awards excellence in a diverse range of transport and automotive designs.

The BruderX EXP-8 drove home with the trophy this year after being awarded the 2023 Best in Class Winner for Automotive and Transport. Authoritative in form and unparalleled in function, the BruderX EXP-8 redefines the limits of off-road camper trailers. Its generous interiors provide a luxurious living experience for users, while its resilient exteriors effortlessly glide through any terrain. Lightweight, intuitive and efficient, the exceptional design of this camper trailer inspires adventure in every season.

Furniture and Lighting

SYSTM Furniture

Lifecare Furniture & Clandestine Design Group

Image: Systm Furniture

The Furniture and Lighting sub-category is inclusive of entries used in domestic and commercial environments, including workstations, architectural hardware and textiles.

The 2023 Best in Class Winner for Furniture and Lighting is SYSTM Furniture, a renewable furniture range designed for use in healthcare facilities. With covers that can be removed and replaced within minutes and parts that can be easily disassembled, SYSTM makes it easier to maintain hygiene standards. Finished with clever details like fire and water resistant fabric and crafted without a debris-trapping seat well, SYSTM has the ability to refresh, remodel and revive.

Consumer Electronics

HP 14 Laptop PC Eco Edition

HP Design + Native

Image: HP

As technology becomes increasingly integrated with our working lives and leisure time, exciting new advancements continue to delight uses and inspire designers. The Consumer Electronics sub-category recognises such excellence in products like computers, phones and gaming consoles. The 2023 Best in Class Winner for Consumer Electronics is the HP 14 Laptop PC Eco Edition, a laptop that balances sustainability with cutting-edge educational capabilities.

Affordably priced and complete with a 9.25 hour battery life, this laptop is designed to help students and hybrid workers unlock their full potential. Its display features an 84% screen to body ratio, allowing space for uninterrupted multi-tasking. Crafted using recycled materials and energy efficiency considerations, the HP 14 Laptop PC Eco Edition sets a new standard for sustainable consumer electronics design.

Medical and Scientific

PPB Technology – CYBERTONGUE®

PPB Technology, Tricycle Developments & Xentronics

Image: PPB Technology

Good design has the power to make significant progress in the way we treat patients and advance our scientific understanding. To encourage and recognise evolution in these essential industries, the Medical and Scientific sub-category awards excellence in products like medical devices, therapeutic goods and home health care.

The 2023 Best in Class Winner for the Medical and Scientific sub-category is CYBERTONGUE®, a future-forward food testing system that allows for faster, more accurate food sample analysis. Using protein-based biosensors, CYBERTONGUE® tests liquid samples for a diverse range of low-level components, including harmful bacteria. This helps food stay on the supermarket shelves for longer – reducing waste, improving quality and saving money.

Hardware and Building

Aliro Accessible Collection

ABI Interiors Pty Ltd

Image: ABI Interiors Pty Ltd

The Hardware and Building sub-category awards products used for pool care, home security, plumbing and more. This year’s Best in Class Winner for Hardware and Building took a refreshingly creative approach to accessible bathroom ware.

In response to monotonous assisted living products, the Aliro Collection offers accessible bathroomware that look stylish and function seamlessly. With a plethora of colour options and shapes to suit every aesthetic, the range is equally safe and sophisticated. Designed by the team at ABI Interiors, who believe a beautiful bathroom should be accessible to everyone, the Aliro Collection is an exemplar of product design that improves life quality with an artistic flair.

Commercial and Industrial

BioScout

BioScout & Tiller Design

Image: BioScout

Inclusive of commercial equipment, agricultural machinery and office products, the Commercial and Industrial sub-category brings an abundance of innovations across a myriad of competitive industries.

The overall winner of the 2023 Good Design Awards, and the Best in Class Winner in the Commercial and Industrial sub-category is BioScout, a revolutionary new technology for growers.

By detecting disease particles before they’re visible, BioScout allows farmers to target their use of fungicides, reduce unnecessary sprays and save precious time. It helps to protect the planet and streamline resource use, earning well-deserved recognition as one of the agricultural industry’s most revolutionary disease detection technologies.

Browse all 2023 Australian Good Design Award Winners

Tap into the Good Design Index to be inspired by innovative designs across every industry. Use the search filter to browse different award types and scroll through an abundance of trailblazing appliances, homewares, vehicles and more.

Explore the Good Design Index

Reflecting on a Decade of Good Design

Since 1958, Good Design Australia and the Australian Good Design Awards have promoted and recognised excellence in design, creativity and innovation in Australia and abroad. This marks 2023 as a paramount year – the 65th annual celebration of design innovation.

With the 2023 Australian Good Design Awards now in the rear-view mirror, we’re turning the clock back to explore some of the past Good Design Award of Year winners. That is, the pinnacle of design ambition.

This instalment will illuminate the projects, visions and innovations that have hallmarked the last decade of the Good Design Awards. Even in ten years, it’s incredible to see how our industry has evolved, how design trends have changed and how multiple designs have become mainstays in our modern society.

Don’t forget to look through the Good Design Index for more innovation inspiration.

2013 Good Design Award of the Year

Blackmagic Cinema Camera

Blackmagic Design

The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a Hollywood-quality digital video camera designed for feature films, documentaries and episodic television. Through unforeseen design and engineering innovation, the camera cost only a fifth of existing cinema cameras and worked to introduce high-end filmmaking capabilities to the general public. The camera’s revolutionary compact design animated an entirely new form factor to the industry and positively contributed to a number of cultural implications within the cinema space.

2014 Good Design Award of the Year

Caroma Marc Newson Bathroom Collection

GWA Bathrooms and Kitchens & Marc Newson Ltd.

Image: Powerhouse Collection

The Caroma Marc Newson Bathroom Collection is a unique design collaboration between Australia’s foremost industrial designer and 2023 Australian Design Prize winner and Australia’s market leader in bathrooms. The project, consisting of 22 pieces including toilets, tapware, showers, baths and urinals, saw an iterative and rigorous design and engineering approach be prioritised. Alongside striking bathroom designs that faced multiple design and engineering challenges, patented installation technology also came to light.

2015 Good Design Award of the Year

Tesla Model S

Tesla Motors & Franz Von Holzhausen

The Tesla Model S was the world’s first premium sedan built from the ground up as an electric vehicle. Inspired by a world-class endurance athlete, Model S was designed to be the epitome of efficiency, embodying grace and performance as it overcame many preconceived ideas of what an electric vehicle should be. Not only was it engineered to deliver unprecedented range and a thrilling drive experience, it also wore the badge of the world’s fastest four-door vehicle ever built at the time.

2016 Good Design Award of the Year

Flow Hive

Cedar Anderson, Stuart Anderson & Evolve Group

The Flow Hive system allowed apiarists to tap their hives like a keg. With a revolutionary honey-extraction approach that uses partly-formed honeycomb cells, it allowed anyone, at the turn of a handle, to make honey in their backyard. The lever splits the cells, letting gravity guide the honey into a trough without disturbing the resident honeymakers.

2017 Good Design Award(s) of the Year

Australia’s highest design honours are awarded to two incredible projects in 2017 – Flood Resilient and Accessible Ferry Terminals for Brisbane and Game of Awesome. In the words of Good Design Australia CEO, Dr. Brandon Gien:

“Trying to pick between these two projects proved to be too great a challenge for the judging panel. Both demonstrate excellence in design, innovation and creativity in two very different forms, and are a testament to the exceptional design expertise of products, services, designs and concepts that are available in the Australian market”.

Flood Resilient and Accessible Ferry Terminals
Aurecon & Cox Architecture

Aurecon and Cox Architecture’s natural disaster-resilient ferry terminals not only allow operations to return shortly after flooding, but welcome travellers to better celebrate the river. Flood-safe design reduced the risk of structural elements becoming dislodged and causing damage, automatically releasing gangways eliminated the need for staff to come close to flood waters and dual-berthing facilities increased ferry operations. Design for circulatory movement on the pontoons, various options for seating, open spaces and ramps also promote a safe environment for all passengers, setting a new bar for disabled access.

Game of Awesome
Chrometoaster

Game of Awesome is an hilarious, educational card game designed to inspire students in years 5 to 8 to write creative stories, all while increasing literacy levels. The game is distributed free to schools, presenting undefined pieces of a story that players are challenged to complete with inventive ideas prompted by the cards they hold. Gross, random, ordinary, scary and daring idea cards lead the way. Winning the game involves using card combinations in the most entertaining way, stringing disparate ideas together into a cohesive story. Game of Awesome stands out, intentionally, as a disruptive take on the increasingly rare card game format.

2018 Good Design Award(s) of the Year

Double top-honours were once again awarded in 2018, with Facett – The World’s First Modular and Magnetic Hearing Aid and Growing Growing Human-Centred Design Across Queensland Government taking the prize. Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia, said of the tie:

“These two projects are a perfect representation of the breadth and diversity of entries in the Good Design Awards and reflect the endless potential of good design to impact everything from something as small as a hearing aid to the complexity of systems and processes within government. One tells a story of where the Awards originated with its rich history in product design and the other paints an exciting picture of where design is going and the incredible potential it has to actually help design a better world”.

Facett – The World’s First Modular and Magnetic Hearing Aid
Professor Peter Blamey, Leah Heiss & Yaniv Kaufman

Facett is a world-first modular hearing aid designed to empower hearing-impaired users through flexible construction and styling options. The modern texture of the wearable health technology is reminiscent of a gemstone and is available in an array of fashionable colours. Complete with upgradable parts and a storage pod that doubles as a charger, Facett uses empathetic innovation to improve the experience of those using a hearing aid.

Growing Growing Human-Centred Design Across Queensland Government
Meld Studios & Queensland One Stop Shop Strategy and Implementation Office

On a mission to place people’s needs at the centre of their service delivery, Queensland Government engaged design experts to help staff understand and implement a human-centred design approach. Inclusive of a human-centred design toolkit, the project helps government staff improve their approach to complex organisational contexts. This capability building framework continues to benefit government projects and collaborations across Queensland.

2019 Good Design Award of the Year

Inventia Rastrum 3D Bioprinter

Inventia Life Science & Design + Industry

The Inventia Rastrum 3D Bioprinter is a revolutionary 3D bioprinting platform driven by the needs of biomedical researchers and tissue engineers. The printer uses drop-on-demand deposition to 3D print living cells precisely and safely. Using RASTRUM, researchers are able to produce in hours what may have previously taken days or weeks. This means researchers can conduct significantly more experiments, screening thousands of treatment drugs and effectively turbo-charging their research into cancer treatment.

2020 Good Design Award of the Year

Nurochek System

4DESIGN & LX Group

Headsafe’s Nurochek system revolutionised the assessment of brain health by providing on-demand data to trained medical practitioners within two minutes. The wearable device significantly accelerates the objective assessment of potential injuries, such as concussion, reducing the guesswork and ambiguous testing around brain health. It also allows for data to be compared over time to provide historical snapshots of each user, whether they be teenagers or professional athletes.

2021 Good Design Award of the Year

WHILL Model C2 Personal Mobility

WHILL

WHILL is a personal mobility device that addresses the antiquated design and function of a conventional wheelchair and helps people overcome the physical, emotional and psychological barriers that limited mobility can impose. With its unique form, WHILL allows the user to enjoy a more active position while riding and navigate everyday obstacles with its large omni-wheels and rollers. The device also has a companion app that allows the user to adjust speed, view battery status and range, lock the device and drive it remotely.

2022 Good Design Award of the Year

AdvanCell Isotopes 212Pb Generator

AdvanCell & Design + Industry

AdvanCell’s Generator is a world-first alpha isotope generator that addresses the greatest, unmet need in targeted alpha therapy – the reliable and scalable supply of isotopes. Enabling scaled production and time-sensitive delivery of Alpha 212® (Lead-212) for use in targeted radionuclides therapy for prostate and several other cancer treatments, the design is a game-changer for cancer patients globally. The fast-acting and small-footprint device challenges the bedroom-sized isotope generators of years prior.

2023 Good Design Award of the Year

BioScout

BioScout & Tiller Design

BioScout is a world-first airborne disease tracking device that equips growers and agronomists with autonomous insights into a crop’s microclimate. It sees the unseeable in a range of complex agricultural settings and can function continuously for years without human intervention.⁠ The solution innovates in the face of an increasingly organic world, growing agricultural costs and a greater understanding of the possible adverse effects of overspraying.

EXPLORE THE GOOD DESIGN INDEX FOR MORE AWARD-WINNING DESIGNS.