ADU: Which competitions have you participated in over the last few years?

Adam Goodrum: Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award, Belle Georg Jensen Design Awards, Young Designer of the Year by Domain/SMH, and the IDEA awards.

Which competitions do you generally not enter?
All the ones you have to pay for. I think it creates a situation where a business that has got a lot of money can enter competitions that have a price tag and it leaves other people out in the dark who might have a better piece.

Why do you enter design competitions – marketing.. cash..
A little bit of both. If there is a money prize, say like the SMH prize was a trip to Milan and some money, Bombay Sapphire is obviously very lucrative and really helps out and is a worthwhile thing. As well as the press that goes beside it.

Do you use it as a creative exercise that makes you resolve a piece in time?
It definitely gives me a deadline. And for me unless I have a deadline to work towards it just doesn’t happen. If I decide to enter a competition it makes me complete a product because there is a time to finish by.

How do you choose which ones to enter?
I don’t think I am massively strategic, I just think ‘Well there is something that I am working on that would be good to put in there, I’ll have a go.’

Do you think about brand associations when you enter and whether you want to be aligned with certain companies?
Maybe to a certain extent. If I get an email or something that says there is a competition coming, I think ‘Right, what is that magazine about, what’s that brand about?’ I think about whether I have a product that I haven’t really presented before.

In some ways being a teacher at university, people ask about competitions and I say, ‘Well, you know it is sometimes not good to have any part of them.' Because I have seen that sometimes it is really hard for people. I don’t think they are a true reflection of what people have really got. It can change the way they might go about something because they see it as the be all and end all, and it is just not. It is a panel of judges who have subjective opinions and for whatever reasons people win stuff.

Do you think it can set up a sense of rejection for a product that might have a broader market then that defined by the competition?
Absolutely. There have been situations where people might have stopped working on something because of a rejection.

On average how much time would you spend putting together an application?
I think it varies.

What about Bombay Sapphire?
Oh yeah, a lot of time went into that and when I won that was fantastic. I submitted something the first year and didn’t receive anything, and then the second year I worked hard on getting a piece together.

What would be the most money you would have spent entering a competition? You say you don’t pay entry fees but with freight of product, prototyping and time spent…
That’s what I spend my money on! Making new stuff. The piece that I won Bombay Sapphire with, that was pretty pricey, not that I have money now, but I had next to nothing then. There was a lot of investment for sure.

But obviously it was worth it.
Yeah, it was wonderful. But I think it really, really helps when you understand that if it doesn’t happen, and you don’t win, it doesn’t really matter.

How much do you look at the fine print before you enter? Like the terms and conditions?
I am very, very cautious with those things now. If I think I have a very good idea and it has a commercial application then I wouldn’t put it in a competition because once it is publicly disclosed I have no copyright over it.

How do you as a designer assess that? I guess that is a kind of market awareness. Do you just have an instinct now for certain tiers of design?
No I think there is “wow” stuff which can be very good for a company in terms of branding and that kind of thing, but may not be something that has huge commercial application. Often that is a more appropriate piece for an exhibition. But to put something in a competition that has the potential for massive commercial application and some utilitarian purpose, no way, you are just crazy to put that in unless you have got a patent on it, but otherwise you wouldn’t do it. You would be shooting yourself in the foot.

There are often clauses in competitions that can cause problems for designers – mainly issues with copyright of to do with ownership of images, or if it is more speculative like a Designboom competition, where designs may then be owned by the organiser.

Yeah which is really shocking. I think with things like Designboom if you have an amazing opportunity to have something put into production, then it is worth it, but if not, no.

I had a situation with my Stitch folding chair related to that. Designboom had a folding chair competition and a piece came up in the design competition that was very similar to mine. I had designed my piece a long time before that, and I knew about the competition but I didn’t put it in there for the exact reason, that I didn’t want it on the web. I just emailed the competition and said, ‘Look I can prove that this is my design previously.' I got in touch with the designer.

Did it win?
I think it was a finalist. Maybe second or something. The guy who designed it was really nice and said, ‘I am sorry, it was a coincidence and I can see yours was done earlier and it is a resolved prototype and I won’t pursue it.' Though he still put it on his website.

Between you and me I would never put a new piece in a competition now. I just wouldn’t do it. It isn’t worth it.

Unless it was already in production?
Unless it was already in production. That would be the only way I would put it in. But maybe because I have generated a bit of a reputation now and competitions have helped me and so forth, now I don’t really need it so I wouldn’t risk losing copyright as a result of a competition.

So they have been useful for you in terms of building your profile?
Absolutely. The marketing machine behind the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award and so forth is just fantastic, it was twenty thousand dollars when I won, and now it is thirty. Even on an international scale that is good good money for a design competition, that helped me out like you wouldn’t believe. I could do all these things that I wanted to do but couldn’t afford to do before that.

Does winning a competition add weight for potential clients, or do they go on the strength of your portfolio?
I think it absolutely depends on the company you are dealing with. Some companies are leaders because they don’t worry about those sorts of things and they make their decision purely on the product, rather than a situation that somebody might already have made a decision on. Other companies might see it as important.

You are a design lecturer, what kind of advice do you give your students in the classroom when they ask you about entering design competitions?
OK, because they do ask me. What I say to my students is that I think a competition is fantastic because it gives you a deadline to work to, and if you don’t think that there is any opportunity for a patent or some situation where you can get a copyright on it, but you appreciate that it could help you with press and stuff then it is good. But you can’t be precious about it if it happens it happens, and if it doesn’t it doesn’t.

www.adamgoodrum.com

Interview by Madeleine Hinchy.

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