Not so flakey: Flaik design wins national award - 2008

28 August 2008

A groundbreaking personal tracking device for skiers designed by a commercial consultancy company made up largely of QUT graduates has won a major national award and been recognised internationally.

The  Flaik, designed by CMD Design and Innovation, took the Australian International Design Award of the Year earlier this year.

Head designer Mark Gilroy, who graduated from QUT's Bachelor of Built Environment and postgraduate Industrial Design degrees in 2001, said the fact that five of their top designers had studied at QUT was a happy coincidence.

"We look worldwide for designers, and we have had graduates from Canberra and the UK, but we have always found it is easy to get well-qualified graduates from QUT," said Mark.

"We design a lot of products, a wide range of mass marketed consumer items.

"The  Flaik  is a personal tracking device which can be used by skiers and boarders in ski resorts, and can track performance, records, and also lets you know where friends and family are.

"You can log onto an interactive community within the  Flaik,  which is kind of similar to Facebook, and it reviews your performance, works out where you want to go, where you have been, your best skis, how fast you have been going, all that sort of thing."

The initial concept of the  Flaik  was the brainchild of a local company by the same name, and the product has now received interest from the USA and Canada.

"One of the most popular uses resorts are finding for the  Flaik, is assisting with ski skills - there are a few major ski resorts in Colorado coming on board to make it mandatory for adults and kids being taught in a ski school to wear them," said Mark.

"As well as peace of mind for parents and friends, it also means they can track progress and improvement."

Designers visited all interested resorts and mapped out the distances and area of each place to input the data into the  Flaik.

Mark says CMD has entered the Australian Design Awards (ADA) since 2000 and has come away with nine awards. However, this year the ADA opened the entries to the rest of the world for its 50th anniversary and became the Australian International Design Awards. CMD entered with the Flaik and came away with the major prize, the International Product of the Year.

"This year is actually the first time any Queensland consultancy won it, so it was a big deal, and since then we have definitely noticed the hits on our web page have gone up considerably."

The  Flaik  also won the German iF Award, which is generally acknowledged as one of the top product design accolades possible.

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