Huge congratulations to recent Billy Blue Branded Fashion Design graduate, Elysia Tassis on winning the Design Institute of Australia’s Queensland Fashion Design Graduate of the Year Award (GOTYA) and Billy Blue Interior Design graduate, Oscar Giraldo who won the Australian Interior Decoration Graduate of the Year Award.
The GOTYA Ceremony is an annual high point for the design industry celebrating exceptional design talent from around Australia in the early stages of their career.
The program is instrumental in providing tertiary institutions and design graduates with vital, real-life feedback from experienced designers and industry figures – a skill that Billy Blue prides itself on – design education by industry, for industry.
Each year, educational institutions are invited to nominate their top graduates across various design disciplines. Nominee portfolios are anonymously evaluated on their design excellence based on a transparent judging process and criteria. Finalists are interviewed by a panel of judges to determine their transferable workplace skills and predicted the impact on the Australian design industry.
The DIA received a record number of 200+ nominations from design educators from 24 tertiary intuitions across Australia. This year’s GOTYAs are an excellent line-up of Australia’s next generation of design visionaries. Many of the 70+ judges have commented about how wonderful it is to see such amazing talent entering our industry.
Winners received a prize pack which includes a 12-month mentoring relationship with a DIA member.
Branded Fashion Design: Elysia
Brisbane based Branded Fashion Design graduate, Elysia, is currently doing freelance design work as well as starting her own brand. Elysia credits Jaki Walker (Senior Learning Facilitator) for her award success, ‘Jaki, my lecturer, is amazing! She is the one who nominated me for this award’.
“My advice for other Billy Blue graduates would be to believe in yourself – even if you feel like your work is not perfect. Keep going, see what happens and don’t compare yourself to others. Make the most of every opportunity!”
Jaki adds, ‘Elysia, has been an absolute pleasure to work with. She is a passionate and focused graduate, who demonstrates enthusiasm in all she does and is dedicated to achieving success’.
Interior Design: Oscar
Melbourne based Interior Design graduate, Oscar, made sure his submissions represented his creativity as a designer and the way he approaches design problems according to the design processes he learnt in his course.
Oscar believes that “brands are more aware of consumer behaviour and that’s the main challenge we have as designers” and credits his lecturers for preparing him for this.
“Billy Blue, especially my lecturers, have taught me to approach and analyse each brand and brief in order to produce a tailored creative design solution. If you truly seek to understand the brand/client/product, it follows that your design will be successful.”
Oscar’s lecturer, Steven Paul adds “Oscar has been an optimistic, hardworking and engaged student, and is very deserving of this recognition”.
Congratulations to our GOTYA award-winning graduates and thank you to our lecturers for supporting and guiding them during this process and throughout their educational journey. This is a testament to the hard work and passion we have for our students and the work we do.
