The Good Design Awards (GDAs) are a cause to dust off the extra special outfit, add a touch of bling and head to the big gala celebration at the Opera House for their diamond anniversary.

Its an apt milestone to celebrate in their 60th year and we all know that diamonds are formed with pressure. Designers from all industries are familiar with the concept that the combination of time and pressure can too produce a great design outcome.

The GDA has a reputation for being one of the most rigorous and diligent design awards programs in the world.

The judging panel of design industry heavyweights, this year are making the tough decisions across 28 categories and hundreds of local and international and over over the lifetime of the awards there have been ten of thousands of entries.

Clandestine Design Group Design Director Neil Davidson, said that although it wasn’t his first time entering the GDAs, but its the first year CDG has entered projects into the awards.

“Its pretty exciting to do so when it such a big year for the GDAs.

“We hope to have our fingers crossed, for good news in all five categories that we’ve entered, at the Gala event at the Opera House.”

The entries are across different categories including the:

‘tough as nails’, MAXTRAX Xtreme in ‘Sport and Lifestyle’,
beautiful and functional, Inspire Desk Organiser in ‘Homewares and Organisation’,
tiny and groundbreaking, Field Orthopaedics Micro Screw Kit in ‘Medical Technology’ and the
category creating , Audeara A-01 Headphones are both the ‘Consumer Electronics and ‘Packaging Design’ categories.

The diamond year of celebration made us take stock of some of the things that have happened over the decades the GDA have been running.

It began in 1958 funded by the Commonwealth Government after the Industrial Design Council of Australia (IDCA) is formally by a group of design and industry professionals.

In 1967 there is a royal connection to the awards, with the introduction of the Prince Philip Prize for Australian Design, presented personally by His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh.

Over the year the awards introduced life-changing icons of design including the first Cochlear implant in 2000 and Marc Newson’s Economy Class Seat for the Qantas A380 taking out the 2009 Australian International Design Award of the Year.

There has been a touch of celebrity over the years with Wil Anderson hosting in 2006, comedians Hamish and Andy doing the same in 2007and; in 2012 the Design Award of the Year going to the Deepsea Challenger built in Australia by Hollywood Director James Cameron and Ron Allum.

Back in 1979 the awards were presented by TV celebrity Ita Buttrose and were televised on the ABC with an audience of more than four million. Last year this came full circle with a series premiering called ‘Australia by Design Innovation’ with Dr. Gien from GDA co-hosting the show with fellow Judges, Tim Horton and Terri Winter.

There are some exciting things happening at the awards in the design industry, CDG can’t wait to see what the next 60 years brings - they are hoping that their own ‘design diamonds’ get their place in the history books at the Gala event in May.

CDG puts forward five exciting entries into their first Good Design Awards