Design That Matters: A 2024 Recap & 2025 Preview

As 2024 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank our incredible Good Design community for an amazing year. This year, we celebrated The Design Effect – recognising how creative ideas, collaborative efforts, and strategic design thinking creates positive ripple effects across businesses, industries and sectors. From transforming industries to changing lives, design continues to have a lasting impact for people, place and planet. 

Looking ahead to 2025, we’re excited to explore the next horizon of innovation and opportunity and share what’s next for the new year. 

A Year of Design Impact

The 2024 Australian Good Design Awards, were a uniting moment for 2024. The Awards saw the world’s most innovative designers, creators, and thought leaders gather to celebrate the true power of design. This year’s event proved that design is not just about aesthetics – it’s about driving real-world change, whether by tackling sustainability, shaping future technologies, or crafting human-centered solutions, it’s about driving purpose, profits and prosperity for all. 

“The ‘Design Effect’ aimed to showcase how good design can start to reshape industries and transform the way we live. Good design leaves a lasting impact that goes far beyond the surface,” said Rachel Wye, Managing Director of Good Design Australia.

“The Awards showcased so many extraordinary projects across architecture, product design, digital innovation, and social impact – demonstrating that great design can be applied to every area of our lives, both work and play.” she added.

Among the many remarkable projects recognised this year, the Da Vinci 5 Surgical System by Intuitive stood out, earning the prestigious Australian Good Design Award of the Year. With over 150 enhancements and 10,000 times more computing power than its predecessor, the Da Vinci 5 Surgical System is not just about cutting-edge technology – it’s about transforming the everyday experience of surgeons, care teams and improving their patients’ outcomes.

“The Da Vinci 5 set a new benchmark for precision, safety, and comfort in the operating room, representing the future of healthcare design – where technology meets usability and patient care,” said Rachel.

“The Award of the Year is presented to just one project each year, so it really represents the pinnacle of design excellence and innovation. We’re thrilled that this year’s Award went to Intuitive, their collaborative creativity and solution-focused approach were exceptional and deserved to be recognised at the highest level,” she added.

From the Australian Good Design Awards to the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards, and many more throughout 2024, we’re proud to lead the charge in celebrating and advancing the very best in design excellence.

Looking to 2025: New Categories and New Possibilities

We’re excited about what’s next. For the 2025 Australian Good Design Awards, we’re introducing a brand new category for Concept Design. The category will focus on ideas that have the potential to make a real, lasting difference. It’s about looking beyond the drawing board to solutions that could change the world for the better.

“We’re really excited to introduce the Concept Design category. It’s all about spotting the ideas that could become the next big thing – and shining a light on projects that are bold, forward-thinking, and have the potential to shape the future in meaningful ways,” Rachel shared.

Another major highlight for 2025 is the World Design Congress. Hosted by the UK Design Council, the 34th World Design Congress and WDO General Assembly will take place in London from 9-11 September 2025. The event will bring the global design community together to explore the theme “Design for Planet.”

This three-day gathering is going to be a powerful moment for sharing ideas, discussing challenges, and looking at how design can help tackle the environmental issues that matter most.

Good Design Australia is also thrilled to be launching the Good Design Podcast in 2025 – keep an eye out for more details in the new year. 

2025 is shaping up to be another year of exciting possibilities. We can’t wait to see what new ideas, collaborations, and projects emerge as we continue to explore how design can make a difference. The ripple effect of good design is just getting started.  

“Design is about so much more than just making things beautiful – it’s about solving worthwhile problems, creating seamless experiences, and leaving the world better than you found it. 2025 is going to be another year of big ideas and bold moves and we can’t wait to get stuck in,” added Rachel. 

A huge thank you to all of our Good Design Community for being part of the Design Effect this year and we can’t wait to continue changing the world with you in 2025!