Lecturer grills up a design award

Kristyn Comino

2 August 2010: A state-of-the-art grill designed by a University of Canberra lecturer and graduate has fried him an Australian International Design Award.

Nick Robinson spent two years working on the Breville Smart Grill which won the award in the consumer category.

“I was really happy to receive the award especially for this product because it was two years in the making,” Mr Robinson said.

“It’s one of the hardest design awards to win because they’re pretty stringent with their assessing.”

Nick Robinson with the Breville Smart Grill that won him an Australian International Design Award

Innovative design features of the grill include:

•         ‘Element IQ’ technology, where the element has been cast in to the grill plate to lock in heat

•         Interchangeable grill and flat plates which are also dishwasher safe

•         The ability to open flat as an outdoor/indoor barbecue

•         Improvements in temperature control including an LCD screen that displays the degree of heat.

Mr Robinson stressed that the award was a team effort, adding that at Breville the designers are able to follow the process through to the finish.

“Every good design process involves a team, it’s never a solo effort,” he said. “Breville’s fairly unique for designing because we take a product right through from sketch to production. A lot of design companies just use the designers for the concept.”

This full design process included Mr Robinson spending six months in China with producers, in factories and quality control testing.

Mr Robinson has been designing ever since he started his degree at the University, including a drink bottle and bottle carrier he designed in second and third year that continues to be used today by brands like Puma and featured in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

He won the Design Institute of Australia Graduate of the Year Award in 2004 and has also won a Red Dot Design Award for a Breville toaster.

Mr Robinson started as an industrial design lecturer and tutor at the University this year and continues to consult for Breville part-time. He said he has been enjoying combining his practical work with teaching.

“The students are quite inspiring with the ideas they come up with and their fresh outlook on design. After being in the industry so long you can get caught up in the nuts and bolts of it all and it’s good to have a balance of both worlds.”

The Australian International Design Award is presented to a number of products each year in recognition of design excellence. The 2010 program attracted a record 202 industry entries and a further 98 student entries.