QUT grads create award-winning products - 2009

01 July 2009

A design consultancy company staffed mostly by Queensland University of Technology graduates recently won a prestigious design award.

The Australian branch of designworks, an international design group, is headed by Warren Schroder and Alex Wall who both graduated from QUT in 2000 with a Bachelor of Built Environment and Engineering and a graduate diploma in Industrial Design.

The company received the Australian International Design Award 2009 in the Business and Technology category for the Triasx Companion, a device which finds fault in telecommunications base stations manufactured for Triasx.

"It is a complicated product, and it is quite revolutionary in that particular marketplace," Warren said.

"It is very innovative - they did have a large, full featured version of the product which was quite cumbersome and unable to be used in difficult locations. Triasx needed a much more compact version that was easy to carry and quick to setup and use.

"Another important part of the design was about branding, as Triasx wanted it to steer the brand identity of their product range, with the hi-tech, market-leading edge that is synonomous with the functionality of the device.

"They are technically the best in the world in terms of developing this sort of product and they wanted it to have just the right look so that it was attractive from a sales perspective."

Designworks have also received a Red Dot Design Award - a prestigious German design award - for the Secure Pod, a personal safe made for Chubb.

Other products they have designed include tennis racquets, upper class airline seats for Virgin Atlantic, and a range of toys.

"There is a really wide range of products we work on, which keeps it interesting for us," Warren said.

"It is varied, every week you can go into work and be starting a completely different project, which keeps us all interested all the time and on the edge, as well as allowing us to remain updated in terms of manufacturing processes and knowledge."

Warren and Alex both graduated from QUT in the same year, and both began their designworks career path at the London premises.

Warren, after five years working in London, came back to Brisbane to establish the Australian branch of the company, followed some time later by Alex.

"It was challenging when I first came back to Australia as it is quite a different market to the UK, but I was given a lot of support and I am happy with how things are going now," said Warren.

"Designworks is a specialist, relatively small business and I think that the QUT degree prepared its graduates to deal with everything, it is a well-rounded education which means we can handle the technical engineering side of things as well as the creative side."

Designworks at Brisbane now has a staff of four, and Warren said they hoped to double that in the next three years.

Media contact: Sharon Thompson, QUT media officer - 3138 4494 or sharon.thompson@qut.edu.au