Product Judges
Phil Walters
Phil discovered industrial design by accident & found it the perfect pursuit after years of taking things apart to see how they were put together. He graduated from Wellington Polytechnic School of Design in 1987 with a diploma of Industrial Design. He began his career in Amsterdam where he worked for 3 years for the Dutch multi-disciplined consultancy BRS Premsela Vonk and in that time created for companies such as Mercedes Benz ,Sony , Pharmachemie & KLM . He set up Source Designers in Wellington in 1995, a company he ran for 9 years consulting across all sectors of industry.
In May 2004 he took up position as Design Director at Lexicon Systems in Auckland. He misses Wellington's intimacy but loves Auckland's diversity.
Roy Fleetwood
Noted international design strategist Professor Roy Fleetwood has recently joined Victoria University as Head of the School of Design.
He is a well-known and highly regarded design strategist with a large number of significant design and structural projects around the world to his name. A graduate of Liverpool University School of Architecture, and Rome Scholar, he is equally interested in industrial design and architecture.
Professor Fleetwood sees real opportunities to boost the profile of New Zealand design and to use good design to compete in the global market. Particularly, he believes that New Zealand designers need to develop inter-cultural know-how before they truly can compete globally.
Many of his works, and in particular his innovative structures and lighting systems, are patented and have won awards in international competitions.
Kent Sneddon
Kent studied Industrial Design at Wellington Polytechnic and graduated in 1994. After starting his career PeterHaythornthwaite Design Kent moved to Fisher & Paykel where he is part of a 10 strong Industrial Design team. He is involved with both advanced and current product development of white ware products. Kents senior role has a strong focus on product styling and branding across the family of appliances as they apply to Fisher and Paykels international business plans.