To begin with, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora and the Boorooberongal People of the Dharug Nation upon whose ancestral lands the UTS campuses now stand. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands. 

As 2020 unfolded and we realised that we would not be able to work with our students face to face; I worried in particular for our 3rd year and Honours students who were working on the final projects of their degree. These final projects are critical because they are the vehicles through which our students communicate their capability to future employers and the outside world. Final projects need to be of a very high standard to have an impact. I was apprehensive that an isolated working environment would challenge this. I need not have worried because as you will see, once you review the work presented here, our students produced excellent outcomes. I congratulate them all for their outstanding achievements.

Wow, what a year? The students in this group have demonstrated their agility at problem-solving; they have excelled in the challenge of moving from a campus-based hands-on course to the digital world of Zoom and making from home. It was a significant shift as studio conversations became more distant and constrained by time and internet connection. In this their final session they undertook a self-directed project the diversity of which you see on the exhibition pages here. They researched through a literature review and surveyed users where possible. Weekly meetings with project leaders saw documentation of design development through slides of hand sketches, CAD modelling, renderings and mock-ups often utilising found materials. Final designs presented Pecha-Kucha style demonstrated the growth of a high level of professionalism. I wish all the graduates of this group all the best on their future career path.

Since its introduction in 2016 the Product Design Honours Degree has required students to think deeply about the role and responsibility of the product design professional. Honours is a one-year degree built from the three-year bachelor program yet extending beyond its confines to openly and critically challenge conventions typically associated with the classical model of industrial design practice. Each Honours student must identify, through research enquiry, a rational and meaningful opportunity for design intervention – one that is focused on improving the health and well-being of society in some way, through a new product innovation. Aligning these factors is a rigorous process both knowledge directed and practice-led simultaneously, that innovates design methodology itself. This intensive, self-driven program requires students to produce a comprehensive research dissertation and a design outcome that is, in most cases, represented as an appearance prototype with an appropriate level of functionality. Honours graduates demonstrate the confidence to engage with difficult topics and complicated information, the agility to responsibly adjust their perspective based on well-conducted research, the aptitude to synthesise knowledge-directed enquiry with practice-led exploration and the tenacity to stay focused on a long-term project that is emotionally challenging because the outcome cannot be easily defined.