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Queensland graphic designer inducted into DIA Hall of Fame

By Anita Lewis | 22 June 2018

 

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Hugh Edwards. Image via DIA

Hugh Edwards. Image via DIA

Congratulations to Queensland graphic and communication designer Hugh Edwards who was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia (DIA) Hall of Fame earlier this month.

The Design Hall of Fame Program celebrates the work of eminent designers and their significant contribution to Australia’s economic development and cultural identity.

The following is the citation from the DIA website.

As a designer Hugh has had an outstanding design career within the advertising industry, and also managing his own practice for many years. His work in Queensland dates back to the design of the corporate identity and mascot Matilda for the 1982 Commonwealth Games, through Expo88 and beyond.

The awards he has received over some forty years of consistent excellence in commercial practice speak for themselves, but it is an educator that he has made an outstanding contribution to the colleges, as well as the design community. This work has included the preparation of course curriculum for QCA. In addition, Hugh has worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, with Brisbane Advertising and Design (BAD) Club for many years, and contributed significantly to AGDA. He is in the BAD Half of Fame.

Hugh has always been enormously admired for his selfless approach to his professional life. Within a few months of Hugh’s withdrawal from commercial design practice at Creative Plantation, he produced a painted portrait of former Greens leader Bob Brown. The picture is most complex in design and execution, for as well as the subject, it features over one hundred images of Australian endangered species. Hugh consulted with Bob Brown to receive endorsement of all to be included, and Bob Brown commented on the thoroughness of Hugh’s research and the reference gathered. A mammoth project.

Hugh entered this picture into the Archibald Prize last year . The portrait did not make the final, BUT was hung in the “Salon des Refusés", at the S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney. An extraordinary piece of creative design achievement, in this case a recognised work of the world of fine art, and completed as his first project away from the commercial arena.

You can listen to his acceptance speech here.

Among the other designers to be inducted were industrial designer Arthur de Bono; eyewear designer Jonathan Sceats; automotive designer Michael Simcoe; furniture and interior designer Gerald Easden; interior designer Jeffrey Copolov; and furniture, interior and exhibition designer the late Lester Bunbury.

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