Desert Designs

Based in Fremantle, Western Australia, Desert Designs (begun in 1984) is a concept marketing company that deals with authentic Aboriginal art works and acts as a nexus with manufacturing industries to facilitate their transition into products and their entry into retail markets.

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Australian Fine China: Artists and Industry

Perth based Australian Fine China, the only maker of porcelain in Australia and New Zealand, is currently using a number of artist-designers to move from being a stolid china manufacturer for railways and cafes to one whose products are seen in top flight restaurants in the big hotels, in classy tourist venues and now on the dining tables of the nation. They have some way to go to entice Australians to purchase the 'local product' for their homes but they are making steady progress.

Dorothy Erickson

Out of the Garden and into the Landscape

What landscape architects in Australia have been doing since about 1970 is to begin to address the Australian lanscape in all its extraordinariness and vastness - as a subject for design and interpretation in the creation not only of our settlements but all those places where we may leave our mark, even if we don't inhabit them.

Catherine Bull

The New Ecodesign: Sceptics Beware!

Whilst on a global scale Australia still dawdles on ecodesign, pockets of cutting-edge research and design are moving ahead with international recognition. Overview of events. In 1991 RMIT in Melbourne hosted the EcoDesign 1 Conference 1989-1992 Designers for the Planet, Perth WA Society for Responsible Design (1990 - ) NSW Re-Design Group Melbourne, Victoria (1991-93).

John Gertsakis

From the Bush to the Street: A Change in Direction for Australian Fashion

Despite the pull of the outback and the image of the Aussie bushman, the majority of modern Australians are urban dwellers, strung around the perimeter of the Continent. Little known to the outside world beyond our cultural icons of the kangaroo and the koala, few look to Australia as a source of contemporary design in any form, let alone fashion. Until recently, the global fashion market has seen fit to ignore the rest of our antipodean designers.

Margot Riley

The Domestic Companion: Taking Stock of Furniture Futures

In 1990/91 the author was commissioned to research and develop a national furniture industry strategy. Examines domestic furniture futures, the concept of home, flexibility, transverse use, product families, trends and future furniture companions.

Craig Bremner

Space Defined

Exhibition review Jewellery by Brenda Ridgewell, New Collectibles Gallery, East Fremantle WA 20 November - 1 December 1996

Gillian Rainer

Seeing a Plant: Being a Plant

Exhibition review Stephanie Radok Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide SA 11 September - 6 October 1996

Cath Kenneally

Gifted Arts

In 1992 the Premier of WA initiated the Premier's Gift Commissioning Project in conjunction with the Crafts Council of WA inviting artists to design and produce protocol gifts and souvenirs within a lower price range, which though of exclusive design could be manufactured in multiples using light local industrial processes where appropriate.

Maggie Baxter

Serious Fun

Book review Absolutely Mardi Gras Jointly published by Doubleday and the Powerhouse Museum 1997 RRP $29.95

Pat Hoffie

Petals on a Wet Black Bough

Exhibition review In Remembrance of Things Past... Angela Valamanesh Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide SA 18 October - 1 December 1996

Brenda Goggs

Lighting Design

Market size in Australia is the main hurdle to successful lighting however there are designers who are making inroads with Australian lighting design.

Tim Laurence

Furniture Design in Western Australia

The present era of contemporary Western Australian furniture design can be thought of as beginning under the influence of David Foulkes-Taylor (1956 until his death in 1966).

Helen Ross

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