Factory Design District

Trent Jansen is a designer based in Thirroul, Australia.

Trent holds a Bachelor of Design from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in Sydney, spending a portion of his degree in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. 

After a period working under Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam, Trent returned to Australia to set up a design studio in Sydney, before moving his practice to Thirroul on the New South Wales South Coast. 

Trent Jansen’s awards include: Space+Edra Design Residency in 2010, Bombay Sapphire ‘Design Discovery’ Award in 2008, the Spiral ‘Rendez-vous’ Japanese Manufacturing Residency in 2006, the Australia Council for the Arts ‘New Work’ Award in 2005 and the Object ‘New Design’ National Graduate Award in 2004. 

Trent Jansen’s work is in production with Tait, DesignByThem and The Broached Commissions in Australia, Sekimoto in Japan and Moooi in The Netherlands. 

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MakerSpace &co Dirty Design Debate: Australian Design Should Be Made In Australia

Factory Design District

Factory Design District: In Conversation with Trent Jansen

David Harrison is a Sydney based design journalist and interiors stylist.

He is the founder of the Design daily blog which covers all manner of subjects related to design. He has been contributing to Australian interiors magazines since 1999 and has work published in Belle, Vogue Living, Real Living, Inside Out and Habitus. He also contributes regularly to the Powerhouse Museum’s D*Hub blog.

Portrait photography: Sam McAdam-Cooper.

Penny is the founder of The Design Writer blog, Contributing Editor of Architectural Review Asia Pacific and Mezzanine magazines and is completing a Masters in Design at UNSW on the topic of narrative in design.

A former Editor of Artichoke magazines, she also works with architecture and design firms in communications roles, including Bijl Architecture where she is Communications and Business Development Manager.

In 2016, Penny is on the Houses Jury of the NSW Architecture Awards and has co-edited with Peter Salhani a special issue of Architectural Review Asia Pacific magazine on high rise architecture.

Andrew Simpson is the founder and director of Sydney-based design house Vert and has designed a huge range of products over its ten years of operation, from the intimately hand-crafted through to mass-produced industrial products. Andrew’s approach to design is open and honest, with the act of designing, prototyping and making core to his practice.

Andrew graduated in Industrial Design from the University of Technology in Sydney in 2005 and his work has appeared in over 20 exhibitions in Australia, Europe, North America and Asia. Andrew teaches design at University of NSW Art and Design and speaks regularly about design at events across the world.

MODERATOR // event creator - ANNE-MAREE SARGEANT

AMS wears multiple hats in the design industry - as journalist she was editor-at-large of BELLE, and founder of ID.x THE SNAP COLLECTIVE an independent Australian designer platform. 

After design studies at RMIT, AMS worked as an interior designer at BATES SMART Melbourne, and DEGW, & WOLFF OLLINS in London prior to relocating to Sydney where she was instrumental in founding the SPACE FURNITURE network for founder Kevin Jarrett.

In association with VIVID SYDNEY - AMS is hosting GET REAL - DON'T BE FAKE!! - a constructive discussion on how to protect original furniture and lighting designs; and HANDMADE-BACK TO WHERE WE STARTED? Probing how the proliferation of mass-produced products have seen a rise in the importance of handmade, artisanal products and a return to craftsmanship

GET REAL talks will continue nationally to support original design.

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Authentic Design: Get Real, Buy Real, Supply Real

Factory Design District

Good Design Festival 2016: Exchange 

New Zealand based designer David Trubridge exhibits at major trade fairs and design weeks globally, and has products sold in 40 countries.

As an internationally acclaimed designer David explains how he tackles the issue when his own work is copied.

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Authentic Design: Get Real, Buy Real, Supply Real 

Factory Design District

Mud Australia was founded in 1994. The porcelain range, designed by Shelley Simpson, combines hand made processes, clean lines, colour palette and functionality. The end result is a product that neatly intersects a minimalist aesthetic with an artisan finish. Our porcelain happily fits in any interior, providing a timeless alternative to mass produced ceramic design.

As a small business we strongly believe in the global values of craft and community. We actively build relationships with the people who buy, use and love our product.

Our retail stores present all products exclusively on the Vitsœ 606 Universal Shelving System, the iconic furniture range designed by Dieter Rams.

Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy are the Creative Directors of Dinosaur Designs. During their three-decade career of designing jewellery and homewares, Olsen and Ormandy have taken their unique designs around the world, with representation in stores and galleries across five different continents and eight freestanding stores in Australia, New York and London.

They have exhibited at galleries around the world, from Victoria & Albert Museum to Tokyo Writers Block and Guggenheim Museum, and collaborated with international designers including Louis Vuitton Romance Was Born, Jac+ Jack and more.

Olsen and Ormandy's work is inspired by nature and the materials that they work with. Their formal training and love of the Australian light and landscape can be seen in their sense of colour and forms. There is warmth and tactility to their pieces, brought together by the juxtaposition of resin and the hand made nature of their objects, which they design and create in their Strawberry Hills studio.

Sarah Rice is an art-theory lecturer, writer and visual artist who teaches practice-led research in craft and design at the School of Art, ANU. Her most recent course explores the idea of ‘making concepts’ and asks what questions motivate the making process. 

She maintains an active participation in ekphrasis – or art forms responding to other art forms – in particular, poetry responding to visual art and design. Her work in this area has led to recent workshops convened in collaboration with Bendigo Art Gallery, CraftACT and Canberra Museum and Gallery. 

Rice graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University (ANU) and received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of New South Wales in 2003. As a poet, she is widely published and won the 2014 Ron Pretty, and Bruce Dawe poetry prizes; co-won the 2013 Winning Ventures, and 2011 Gwen Harwood, and was shortlisted in the Tom Howard, New Millennium, Fish, Montreal and other poetry prizes.

Business partners and designers, Celina Clarke and Simon Christopher credit the ongoing success of their Melbourne-based lighting design, manufacture and retail business, ISM Objects, to a shared business vision and cohesive approach to design.

Clarke and Christopher have been pivotal in establishing the company as a unique entity within the design and retail sector. Where many of their industry counterparts simply import and retail lighting products, ISM Objects designs 75 per cent of its lighting in-house – the remaining 25 per cent conceived through collaborations with other Australian designers.

ISM Objects manufactures all its products from its factory in Mentone, Melbourne and also retails and distributes its lighting nationally.