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Design:Made:Trade
Springboard Exhibition

Springboard is a practice-based, support program of the Australian Design Unit (ADU) for emerging designers throughout Australia. Last month during the 2009 State of Design festival in Melbourne, the ADU held an exhibition at Design Made Trade focused on the Springboard Project.

The objects and materials exhibited represented the work processes of twelve of the designers who participated in Springboard’s first mentoring program – Elliat Rich from Alice Springs, Alexi Freeman, Gretha Oost, Paul Justin, Jessie Fairweather and Tim Fleming in Melbourne, Rohan Nicol from Wagga Wagga, Gareth Brown from Adelaide, Alison Schutt from Brisbane, and Oliver Smith, Amy Cunningham and Chris Byrne from Sydney.

The display of most works labelled ‘design’ usually happens in one of two settings: a gallery/museum setting in which they are presented as design artifacts, or a retail setting in which they are presented as desirable objects for sale.

The Springboard exhibition attempted to show a third way in which design could be shown. By revealing what happens behind the scenes: in studios, workshops and factories, its possible for the viewer to begin to understand the time, effort, and skills embedded within each of the objects on show.

The exhibition revealed that models, sketches, notes on envelopes, hesitant starts and dead ends, photograph, material tests, prototypes and explorations are the ingredients that shape both design and business