AUT finalists at Best Awards 2022

Forty-five AUT student projects have reached the final stage of the prestigious Best Awards 2022.

The students’ work is shortlisted across Graphic, Moving Image, Product, Public Good, Spatial and Toitanga design categories.

Two projects garnered nominations across two categories each:

  • Nicolle van Heerden’s ASU50 Sterilisation Unit, which is designed to address the harm to native biodiversity caused by stoats
  • Eva Min’s Where we belong, which provides a platform for people with multicultural identities

Judging of this year’s awards took place at AUT’s City Campus over seven days in early August.

The judging panel, convened by Nadia Aftimos of the agency Satellite, comprised Frances Cooke (Clemenger BBDO,) Liz Cretney (Springload,) Ryan Campbell (DNA Design,) Jodie Kennedy (Edition) and Brett King DINZ (Kallan & Co.)

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 2021, AUT School of Art and Design students won 40 Best Awards, including 14 Gold, 12 Silver and 14 Bronze pins.

The 2022 winners will be announced at a ceremony in Auckland on 7 October.

See below for a full list of AUT student finalists, by category:

Graphic

Arlena Hosking, Otherworld

Ruby Grace Brown, Queer Astrology

Hunter Lennan, A Place called Home

Hannah Coates, Sojourn

Megan France, Irregular

Ashleigh Sun, Brucke Display

Roylin Bailey, Ten Years Apart

Abbey Barlow, D.O.S.D

Zaffa Gayoom, Stories from Paradise

Nick Zeff, Wonder Activity Cards

Georgia Billman, Second Chances

Oliver Wooster, Konini

Alisha Prasad, Yaad Karo

Sammy Good, Tracing Threads

Eva Min, Where we belong

Moving Image

Francesco Antonio Montero, What Draws Me In

Tamir Reznik, Rent is Overdue

Thomas Rangihuna, Charging

Tim Griffiths, The Snowman

Ahoo Shafi, David

Jaeyong Heo, Criminal Carrots

Yeon Bin Kim, Take Out Night

Sarah Johnston, Jaimee Burk, Mellow

Product

Kate Weatherly, OPIVA Refined

Nicolle van Heerden, ASU50

Molly Whitehead, Sustainable In-Tent

Jordan Williams, Compass

Public Good Awards

Kendra Smith, Blu’s Backpack

Michelle Sheng, Bubble Openers – Placemaking concepts for public transport

Stella Wilson, Versatile

Jenna Billman, Big Deal! So What?

Alyssa Tai, Supporting you through a difficult time: Interrupting a pregnancy for medical reasons

Amy Leong, Campers Kai

Nicolle van Heerden, ASU50

Annie Yu, Loop

Eden Doull, Disposable Rapid Antigen Test

Jordan Williams, Compass

Eva Min, Where we belong

Gabriella Woodman Jordan Timoti Dylan Birnie Alexandra Paton, Super Savvy

Qianying Li, Yiran Liu, Zhanlong Deng, PetPal

Spatial

Chris Bentley, Vacancies and Attenuated Presences: A counter-memorial swimming pool for Waitara

Alice Wang, Shift: Kinetic Intervention in the Domain Wintergardens

Gemma Jiyeon Kwon, HAUMI: Join all together

Toitanga

Jordan Tane, Kyani Utia, Sisi Panikoula, Gloria Falaniko, What Makes Me Plastic

Bella Martin, Nga Mau Rakau o Atua Wahine