As a supermarket “checkout chick” Karen Ly watches customers struggle with heavy bags and ungainly 90-litre trolleys. Too wide to reach over, too deep and often overstuffed, the trolleys caused people to put their backs out.
But Ly is also an industrial design student at Monash University’s Art Design and Architecture faculty (MADA). For her graduate project she devised not just a new trolley, but an entire system and lifestyle around it.
Health check: Richard Picciani’s Ochi is an app to monitor the retina for early indicators of disease.
Customers join a loyalty scheme with their local supermarket and in return receive the take-home fold-up Careway trolley. At home users compile their shopping list on a smartphone app. Once in the store, with the phone slotted into the trolley, the app identifies where the products are, streamlining the shopping experience. Shoppers scan their own products’ barcodes. Instead of one cavernous trolley the Careway carries numerous take-home bags which are simply weighed at the express checkout to cross-check that everything tallies with the self-scanning.
“This system treats the supermarket as a public pantry and potentially allows customers to walk out without having to handle their goods more than once,” Ly says. “I actually work as a ‘checkout chick’, so this projects hits pretty close to home.”
Karen Ly’s Careway trolley.
According to Selby Coxon, head of design at MADA, what Ly’s project demonstrates is that “design is not just thinking about the object but considering the whole business model around the object and the systems that are going to be used.”
Over the next few weeks, Melbourne’s three major design schools – MADA, RMIT and Swinburne – will host their graduate exhibitions. After four years honing their skills on various projects, the exhibitions showcase their work to invited industry leaders. In some respects the show is also a barometer of the state of design.
But as Coxon says, “design is a broad church these days”. Even among objects designed ostensibly for the home they encompass children’s toys, health services, lighting and furniture.
If the design church is broad, its disciples proselytise sustainability. “It’s embedded into student design these days,” Coxon says.
Product longevity underlies Meyanne Chiam’s Prongo bike. The four-in-one mobility product morphs according to a child’s developmental stages. Instead of buying a new product for each stage the modular system enables parents to start with a seated baby walker and as children’s legs strengthen it becomes a standing walker. As Chiam explains, “they can continue their balance training on the pedal-less balance bike until they have the confidence to stride along on the scooter”.
Students are not only designing for the longevity of products, but the population as well. “How we deal with an ageing population is a big issue in design,” says Dr Judith Glover, industrial design lecturer at RMIT. “It’s a huge growth market.”
Yet here too, much of the design around ageing and healthcare is home-based. Doing so avoids stretching hospital resources while recognising people are happier at home. But the move to self-monitoring is also a disease preventive, keeping people healthier for longer.
As physical health goes hand in hand with emotional wellbeing, Clara Tanone’s Ahava monitors stress levels. Meanwhile, Richard Picciani’s Ochi provides the personal healthcare market with an app to monitor the retina as the early onset of diseases can be seen through indicators in the eye.
But it’s not all apps, interactivity and computer-aided design. Students are getting more hands-on, Glover says. “There’s a return to making, whether it’s ceramics, glass or woodwork. Particularly in furniture there’s a real trend back to artisanal products.”
Jonathan Ho’s Chinoiserie Reborn series looks at developing the Australian furniture industry by designing and manufacturing products that cater for the growing, increasingly nomadic, Chinese middle-class. His chairs give traditional Chinese aesthetics – such as the Ming chair – a contemporary, cross-cultural twist. The foldable furniture uses Australian timbers.
Armed with a wealth of skills, the current generation of designers can develop their products on their own through avenues like Kickstarter, go into business for themselves or, as these exhibitions showcase, audition their work for commercial talent scouts. Today the potential exists to affect not only how we live in Australian homes, but internationally as well.
MADA Now, November 22–December 5; artdes.monash.edu.au
RMIT ID Projects, November 17–28; designhub.rmit.edu.au
Swinburne Grad.Ex November 26–December 2; swinburne.edu.au
HANDS ON
MARKIT
Meet your maker at Markit as about 100 independent Australian designers and illustrators have been curated for this design market. Products range from ceramics to homewares, jewellery, fashion accessories, stationery and prints.
Markit@FedSquare, The Atrium, Federation Square, November 23, 10am–5pm, free. markitfedsquare.com.au
FESTIVE HUE
From tree garlands to table settings, learn the hottest colour trends to achieve “magical” colour schemes to wow everyone this Christmas.
VonHaus Design Studio, 449 High Street, Prahran, November 29, 2pm-5pm, $180. von-haus.com.au
PORCELAIN
Make a selection of dishes, spoons and other porcelain pieces to take home in this beginner’s guide to learning clay hand-building techniques. Using a range of hand-building methods, you’ll develop and build your own forms, incorporating inlay, sgraffito and decorative texturing methods.
Home-Work Studios, 7-11 Dawson St, Brunswick (opposite the Brunswick baths), December 6-7, 10.30-3pm, $275.bakerhousemade.bigcartel.com