They're the best: awards name top designers

Justin Kennedy-Good (left) and Stephen Reay in their design lab at Auckland City Hospital. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Kiwi ingenuity and flair have been highlighted in this year's top design awards.

The Best Awards last night paid tribute to some of the country's most ingenious designs in various sectors - including newspapers, hospitals and vehicles.

Among the winners was the Design for Health and Wellbeing lab (DHW) within Auckland City Hospital.

The lab's co-directors, Dr Stephen Reay and Justin Kennedy-Good, work with the Auckland District Health Board and students from Auckland University of Technology's faculty of design and creative technologies to come up with new designs in medical equipment and systems to improve patient wellbeing.

One of their latest projects is a digital dashboard showing wait times and service updates - developed to reduce patients' stress and frustration. The board is now on display in the hospital's Emergency Department.

In a video about their work, Mr Kennedy-Good said working with design students had been hugely rewarding.

"Design offers an opportunity and a tool set and certainly our work with AUT offers a whole bunch of resources, capability and thinking that we would otherwise as an institution not be able to tap into routinely.

"And they can come in and look at things from a perspective that we otherwise wouldn't."

Another design that received high praise at the awards was the Volkswagen reduce-speed dial, which replaces the usual odometer on cars with one designed by someone close to the driver's heart. Like an ordinary dial it shows the speed but all the numbers are written in a loved one's handwriting.

Children can also add a small picture or a message such as "We love u mum", reminding the person at the wheel to drive safely.

The unique feature - available on request in New Zealand - has already made a difference; three out of four drivers using it say they reduced their speeding in 100km/h zones by 50 per cent.

Kiwi typeface designer Kris Sowersby was also praised for his custom serif font, dubbed Financier, made for the Financial Times newspaper.

His business, Klim Type Foundry, received an award in the graphic section after the paper approached him looking for an elegant and authoritative design that would pay tribute to British heritage.

Designers Institute chief executive Cathy Veninga said the designs showed off Kiwi ingenuity.

"The depth of insight and ideas, along with the calibre of the craft articulated in each of the disciplines showcases New Zealand design as internationally sophisticated while still expressing our own unique, Kiwi visual language."

The awards, held at Auckland's Viaduct Events Centre, were organised by the Designers Institute of New Zealand and recognise strong design work in seven categories.

For all winners, visit: bestawards.co.nz