Design Awards 2010 - Behind the Scenes

Our June/July issue - which will be on newsstands on June 7 - features our annual furniture Design Awards. We were delighted with the individuality and all-round pizzazz of this year's finalists, and can't wait to show them to you in the magazine (where you'll also be able to find out who the Design Awards 2010 winner is).

For this year's Design Awards shoot, we had all the finalist pieces shipped to Auckland and photographed at the Union Fish Company building in the Britomart area, where the rough concrete floors and exposed brick walls made a fine backdrop for the very polished entries. Our stylists Tanya Wong and Jessica Allen worked with photographer Toaki Okano and his assistant Lorna to photograph the pieces.

Here's Toaki behind the camera, with Jess and Lorna setting up a group shot of the finalists (Tanya took these pics). In this shot, you can see Jamie McLellan's yellow 'Flyover' table, Andy Irving's 'Matchstick' stools (at left), Nathan Goldsworthy's 'Historian' bookshelves, Stephanie Donald's white 'Tangent' coffee table, and Sam Lennon's red 'Inverted Cube' coffee table:

And here's Toaki again, this time photographing Tim Wigmore's 'Pil' light:

The chair in the image below is the 'Starling' by Cameron Foggo:

Here's Toaki in a lighter moment:

And some more of the finalist objects, waiting for their close-ups. The pink 'Hostess' table at right is by Katy Wallace, and is made of pieces of junk-shop furniture. Beside it, the blue 'Table/Cloth' table is by Juliette Wanty.

The Design Awards 2010 winner was chosen by designer Humphrey Ikin and Michael Lett (of the eponymous Auckland gallery). Remember to watch out for full award coverage in our June/July issue - we just sent the final pages to the printer yesterday, so it won't be long until it hits the shelves.