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A Chronological History of Australian Design

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History of Design and Design Law

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Abstract

This chapter comprises an overview of Australian design history, from the continent’s earliest inhabitants to the present. Although Australian design is not well known, its history nevertheless offers some unique and provocative case studies. Design historians have thus far focused primarily on a modernist ideal of designers as form and image-makers and compiled histories based on the resulting artefacts of their practice. But recent scholarship on decolonization has challenged such characterizations of design by highlighting alternative possibilities for understanding design’s history in settler colonial societies. In this light, Australia’s colonial foundation and its legacy require further scrutiny, and the uneasy relationship between professional design culture, colonial expectations and Indigenous culture is juxtaposed in the following account.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Pascoe (2014), p. 134.

  2. 2.

    Moran et al. (2018), p. 73.

  3. 3.

    Page and Memmott (2021), p. 2.

  4. 4.

    See Chapter 26 by Jonathan Dobinson in this volume, especially 26.11 ‘Indigenous Design’.

  5. 5.

    Foley (2007), p. 177.

  6. 6.

    See St John (2018).

  7. 7.

    Sheehan (2011), p. 70.

  8. 8.

    Sheehan (2011), p. 76.

  9. 9.

    Daniels (1996), p. 43.

  10. 10.

    On the early manufacturing in Sydney, see Rich (1987), pp. 24–25.

  11. 11.

    Richards (1988), p. 12.

  12. 12.

    Bryans (1996), p. 76.

  13. 13.

    See Scardamaglia (2020).

  14. 14.

    Scardamaglia (2017), p. 2.

  15. 15.

    See Orr (2006).

  16. 16.

    On the Sydney Exhibition of 1879–1880, see Proudfoot et al. (1988). On the Melbourne Exhibitions, see Davidson (1988), pp. 158–177. Early Australian design laws provided that exposure of a design at intercolonial or international exhibitions did not prevent a design from being ‘new’ and its registration: see, e.g., Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act 1893 (Tas), s. 65.

  17. 17.

    See Chapter 26 by Jonathan Dobinson for a brief overview of colonial patent laws.

  18. 18.

    Pearce and Bakes (2020), p. 259.

  19. 19.

    See Bogle (2002).

  20. 20.

    See the remarkable collections of early trademarks and labels contained in Cozzolino (1990).

  21. 21.

    See Montana (2000); Miley (2001).

  22. 22.

    Pescod (2007), p. 224.

  23. 23.

    See Leckey (2004), especially Chapter 9, ‘Lim Kee Tye and the Chinese Cabinetmakers’, pp. 256–307. On the role of anti-Chinese sentiment and the White Australia Policy’s effects on the Chinese furniture industry, see Markus (1974), pp. 1–10.

  24. 24.

    See Jones (2018).

  25. 25.

    See Chapter 26 by Jonathan Dobinson, especially 26.5 on the replacement of colonial laws with new national laws with respect to ‘copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks’.

  26. 26.

    See Underhill (1991).

  27. 27.

    Rich (1987), pp. 38–39.

  28. 28.

    Bogle (1989), p. 70.

  29. 29.

    See Spearitt (1991).

  30. 30.

    Stephen (2006), p. 36.

  31. 31.

    See Huppatz (2018).

  32. 32.

    Preston (2006), p. 156.

  33. 33.

    Preston (1930), p. 3.

  34. 34.

    See Grant (2014).

  35. 35.

    See Lane (1997).

  36. 36.

    Lowen (2000), p. 117.

  37. 37.

    Ure Smith (1939), p. 15.

  38. 38.

    See Haughton-James (1939).

  39. 39.

    See Whitehouse (2008).

  40. 40.

    Featherston (2002), p. 92.

  41. 41.

    Boyd (1960), p. 2.

  42. 42.

    See Barnes and Jackson (2012).

  43. 43.

    See O’Neill (2006), Karaminas (2007).

  44. 44.

    See Hughson (2012).

  45. 45.

    Andrews (1993), p. 145.

  46. 46.

    As noted in Chapter 26 by Jonathan Dobinson, a Sebel chair was the subject of judicial consideration in D. Sebel & Co. Ltd v. National Art Metal Co. Pty Ltd (1965) 10 FLR 224. The Court found the chair was ‘new’, noting its ‘distinctive splay of the two legs’, ‘in-setting of the supports of the back rests’ and ‘simplicity of outline’.

  47. 47.

    Jonathan Dobinson, in Chapter 26, highlights the 1995 Australian Law Reform Commission report which noted how design practice had changed since enactment of the 1906 Act and proposed a new law to support it which took account of global developments such as these.

  48. 48.

    Fisher (2016), especially Chapter 6, ‘The Emergence of Aboriginal Art in the 1980s’, pp. 75–101.

  49. 49.

    See Sobel and Groeger (2013).

  50. 50.

    Jonathan Dobinson notes that the Design Act 2003 is yet to fully embrace the digital age. The law is still expressed in terms of a ‘product’, on which basis, screen displays and type fonts have been refused registration. This means the Design Act 2003 is unlikely to protect service, systems and strategic design (although some of these new practices may be protected under other laws). See Chapter 26.

  51. 51.

    Easton (2018, 8 Dec).

  52. 52.

    Higgins (2019, 11 June).

  53. 53.

    Mao (2020, 4 Sept).

  54. 54.

    McCarthy (2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

    D. J. Huppatz

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  1. Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Tsukasa Aso

  2. School of Law, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Christoph Rademacher

  3. Research Center for the Legal System of Intellectual Property, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Jonathan Dobinson

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Huppatz, D.J. (2022). A Chronological History of Australian Design. In: Aso, T., Rademacher, C., Dobinson, J. (eds) History of Design and Design Law. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8782-2_25

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