AUT winners at Best Awards 2024
This year at the 2024 Best Awards, staff and students achieved an incredible 48 pins, surpassing AUT’s record performance from last year. This year’s awards include 14 Gold, 14 Silver and 20 Bronze, showcasing our people’s creativity, innovation, and dedication to their craft.
Head of School of Art and Design, Professor Mandy Smith says this is the best year to date for AUT at the Best Awards, highlighting AUT's growing prominence in the design and creative industries in Aotearoa.
"A big congratulations to all our talented staff and students for their outstanding achievements at this year’s Design Institute of New Zealand’s annual Best Awards. With 79 finalists and 48 medallists recognised in excellence in graphic, toitanga, digital, moving image, spatial and product design, we have surpassed last year's results. For our winners, and all our finalists, this is a great accomplishment that reflects the high quality of work produced.
"This year, we’ve seen incredible diversity of work that reflects the range of specialised talent across our department. From innovative digital designs like Karen Li’s 'Cubipet,' an Apple Watch app helping students and Gen-Z workers transition into new careers, to social good projects like Maddi Hohneck’s 'Rewired,' which uses typography to convey the effects of a stroke, it’s clear that our students and staff are pushing the boundaries of design in every discipline.”
Established in the 1970s, the Best Awards are the Design Institute of New Zealand’s annual showcase of excellence and are open to all.
In 2023, AUT School of Art and Design students won 45 Best Awards. In 2022, staff and students from the schools of Art and Design and Future Environments won 31 awards in total.
Full list of winners
Gold
- Karen Li, Cubipet (Digital)
- Holly Craig, Be Picky (Graphic)
- Jacob Davis, Expression as Type (Graphic)
- Yiran Liu, Ghost Talk (Graphic)
- Abbey Luong, Huong Display (Graphic)
- Ella Mishan, The Shabbat Table (Graphic)
- Sean Imbang, Weaving the Filipino Soul (Graphic)
- John Borras Tan, Memory Card Library (Product)
- Maddi Hohneck, Rewired (Social Good Award)
- Mia Freeman, Single Handed (Social Good Award)
- Anya Mayo, Kaye Pambid, Grace Abplanlp, France Garcia, Brodie Harrison, Birdsong (Spatial)
- Grace Fraser, Ruby Robinson, Jocelyn Glenn, Bella Lin, Mehak Vaidyanathan, JAM House (Spatial)
- Jordan Tane, Tomairangi Morgan, Tō Mātou Kāinga, Tō Mātou Ūkaipō (Toitanga)
- Yeaseo Im, Cocoon (Product)
Silver
- Qianying Li, Dreams of a Solo Traveller (Graphic)
- Grace Naylor, From Third Place (Graphic)
- Alistair Charlesworth, Knead (Graphic)
- Grace Costello, Midtown Type (Graphic)
- Junhui Huang, Realm of the Abyss (幽冥圖鑑) (Graphic)
- Billie Fee, St (Graphic)
- Elena Roige, True North (Graphic)
- Hugo Tucker, Elevate (Product)
- Savannah Boulle, Papilio (Product)
- Paige Ihaka, RYTHMO (Product)
- Jacob Smith, Woo-Lace (Product)
- Janella Paloso, Tronicwaste (Social Good Award)
- Nathan Beetge, Understanding Experiences; A Chronic Pain Toolkit (Social Good Award)
- Kyani Utia, Tapu Tivaevae (Social Good Award)
Bronze
- James Gilmer, Recycle Guide (Digital)
- Hannah Inez Alcoba, Virtual EcoCollect (VEC) (Digital)
- Libby Marr, Embracing Imperfections (Graphic)
- Kayla Williams, waha o Tanē (Graphic)
- Qian Shen, Angel (Moving Image)
- Bea A Ellis, Children of the Forest: A Bigger World (Moving Image)
- Hanvit Kang, Ha Anh Vu, Dreams are made of water and paint (Moving Image)
- Callum Forbes-Day (un)dressing Utopia; Connecting to a Local Exploration of Fashion Consumption (Product)
- Yunjae Kim, Morph 'X (Product)
- Giulia Harper, NEST (Product)
- Mark Rous, RESERVE (Product)
- Amy Leong, S_orb (Product)
- Michael Morgan, Whakatō (Product)
- Jordan Tane, Tomairangi Morgan, Tō Mātou Kāinga, Tō Mātou Ūkaipō (Social Good Award)
- Heather Garside, Naiki Saito, Riya Patel, Coco Zhu, Sophie Mebius, Company of Silence (Spatial)
- Davis Wu, Fragments (Spatial)
- Alessandra Mayo, Gutter Art (Spatial)
- Piraya Ruengsakoon, Not all Parasites are Predators (Spatial)
- Matthew Davis, Object Sketch; 3D-printed ceramics (Spatial)
- Zak Thomson, He Kapua Whakapipi, He Kapua Whakapapa (Toitanga)