Presented by NGV and Creative Victoria, the Melbourne Design Week Business Forum – Design Wall Stories is an opportunity to hear from designers, companies and manufacturers featured in Design Wall 2023 as part of the NGV exhibition Melbourne Now and learn how they’re designing to stay ahead in local and global markets and shape Melbourne’s dynamic culture of applied creativity.

Design Wall 2023 celebrates innovative consumer products designed in Melbourne. Representing thirty-five projects by twenty-five design studios – from industrial design consultancies to in-house research and design departments – the installation brings together designers, companies and manufacturers who are shaping the way we live today.

Offering an exclusive insight into the factors influencing contemporary product design in Melbourne join NGV curator Simone LeAmon for a curatorial tour of the Design Wall followed by a panel discussion led by journalist Ali Moore with leaders from Savic Motorcycles, Sussex Taps, Tontine and Adam Cornish Design.

Participants

Ali Moore
Moderator Ali Moore is a freelance broadcaster and journalist, and regular program host on ABC Radio Melbourne. With more than thirty years’ experience as a journalist and broadcaster, she has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s Nine Network, and for the BBC’s global news network, based in Singapore.

Simone LeAmon
Simone LeAmon is NGV’s Hugh Williamson Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture and spent two years researching the design and manufacture of consumer products in Melbourne for Design Wall 2023. Curating the Design Wall for the inaugural Melbourne Now in 2013 – ten years on, the second iteration explores how everyday goods can embody the qualities of place and the values of those who live there.

Vanessa Katsanevakis
Vanessa Katsanevakis is the director and business owner of Sussex Taps. A second–generation family owned and operated business founded in 1995 by Nicolaas Johannes van Putten, Sussex Taps is today a fully integrated, end-to-end design and manufacturing company and an official member of Climate Active, one of the strictest certification bodies in the world. The company’s products are made from recycled brass processed at their own foundry in Somerton and is one of the few companies in Australia that has built a state-of-the-art facility for Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD).

Scott Haywood
Scott Haywood is the marketing manager of pillow and bedding manufacturer Tontine. Established in 1956, Tontine manufactures more than 90 per cent of its products locally, and today is part of the John Cotton Group. Producing more than four million pillows per year, the company has been a pioneer in using recycled polyester. Tontine’s Eco Pillow is made from recycled polyester in Tontine’s Global Recycled Standard–accredited factory and prevents the equivalent of 100 million plastic drink bottles from entering landfill in a year.

Adam Cornish
Adam Cornish is a multidisciplinary designer working across furniture, homewares and interiors. Contributing to the storied history of Melbourne designers creating products for the Italian design firm Alessi, founded in 1921, Cornish’s Trinity centrepiece was designed in 2013. Working from his independent design studio in Melbourne, Cornish has collaborated with manufacturers and brands globally.

Dennis Savic
Dennis Savic is the founder of Savic Motorcycles, Australia’s first high-performance electric motorcycle manufacturer. With a background in mechanical engineering, Dennis established Savic Motorcycles in 2016, showcasing the company’s first model at Moto Expo Melbourne in 2018. Designing and building a market-ready 60-kilowatt e-motorcycle from the ground up with designer Dave Hendroff and a small engineering team the company’s flagship e-motorcycle, the Savic C-series is made in West Melbourne. The C-Series received the Victorian Premier’s Design Award of the Year for 2021.