Hall of Fame

The Design Institute of Australia (DIA), Australia's peak national body driving the design industry, is pleased to announce that seven eminent Australian designers will be inducted into the DIA – Hall of Fame in August 2022

The DIA – Hall of Fame is an enduring record of the pioneers, ambassadors and contributors to the Australian design industry. It showcases Australia’s design visionaries and leaders, and celebrates their significant contribution to Australia’s economic development and cultural identity.

Signifying an outstanding body of work, contribution to the Australian design industry or achievement in furthering the profession, the 2022 DIA – Hall of Fame Inductees are:

Prue Acton OBE
Textile & Fashion Design

Prue Acton OBE is a legend of Australian fashion and textile design. She completed a Diploma of Art, majoring in Textiles, at RMIT in Melbourne in 1962 and in 1963 at the age of 19, she started her own label in Flinders Lane. Her bold and colourful designs tapped into the changing era and mood of the new wave of independent young women and in 1967 she was dubbed ‘Australia’s Mary Quant’ after breaking into the American market. She is the recipient of five Australian Wool Board Awards, three David Jones Awards for Fashion Excellence and four Fashion Industry of Australia Lyrebird Awards.

Robert Backhouse FDIA
Interior Design

Rob Backhouse is Chairman, Principal and Head of Design at international design and architecture practice Hassell and has been instrumental in shaping the company’s ambitious design culture. He has participated on and chaired juries for Australian Interior Design Awards, received a Gold Medal in the 2017 Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for his enduring contributions to Australia’s design culture and is a Fellow of International Federation of Interior Architects / Designers (IFI). He is a long standing and engaged member of the Design Institute of Australia and received a Fellowship of the DIA in 2011.

Dr Dorothy Erickson
Jewellery Designer & Design Writer

Dorothy Erickson is a West Australian artist-jeweller, historian, curator, editor and author who has been exhibiting her work since 1972 and internationally since 1979. She has made substantial contributions to many journals, edited others and won prizes for writing that documents Western Australian art & design. Her jewellery, often kinetic with recent pieces evoking the colour, form or habit of Western Australian wildflowers. Her jewellery is represented in public and private collections internationally. Dorothy obtained a PhD from University of Western Australia in 1992 and was awarded the Western Australian Heritage Award for Individual Voluntary Contribution in 2017.

Alison Forbes
Book Design

Alison Forbes is the first full-time independent book designer in Australia. As a pioneer in this field, she designed hundreds of titles over more than five decades, many of which occupy a most significant position within the development of Australian culture. Her books include Alan Marshall’s novel, I Can Jump Puddles for which she won the 1955 Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) Books of the Year, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967), The Land that Waited (1967), John Cotton’s Birds (1974), The Art of the First Fleet (1988) and Robin Boyd, A Life (1995). Alison is an AGDA and ABDA Hall of Fame recipient in acknowledgment of her body of work and many industry awards.

Robert Geddes FDIA
Industrial Design

Robert Geddes is a pioneer in the Industrial Design sector with over three decades of distinguished professional practice. He was a founding member and Managing Director of PROdesign and is the recipient of numerous accolades including Top Nominee Danish INDEX:07 International Design Awards, Smart State Designer of The Year 2008, Australian Good Design Awards, Queensland Design Excellence Awards, and Design Institute of Australia (DIA) Gold and Silver Awards. He is an innovator in the field of patent and trademark applications and has been a consistent champion of the Australian design industry across all its categories and facets.

Jefa Greenaway
Architecture & Interior Design

Jefa Greenaway is an architect, interior designer, academic, director of Greenaway Architects and co-founder and Chair of Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria (IADV), Australia’s only Indigenous design association. He was a recipient of the AIA National Emerging architect prize - the Dulux Study and the Inaugural Stormtech Scholarship to the Glenn Murcutt International Master Class. He was appointed an Honorary Senior Fellow, at Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne (2013-17) and designed the award winning Ngarara Place at RMIT University. He sits on numerous boards that intersect with art, architecture and cultural heritage and is cocreative director for Australia’s pavilion at the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Dr Jenny Grigg
Graphic Arts & Book Design

Dr Jenny Grigg is an award-winning graphic designer who has worked in Sydney, London, Copenhagen, and Melbourne. After graduating from the University of Technology, Sydney, Jenny worked for ten years Art Directing at Rolling Stone Magazine, HQ Magazine and MTV Australia. She has worked as Creative Director of Harper Collins Publishers and has designed book covers for works by eminent authors Peter Carey and Paul Auster. She has won numerous awards, including Young Designer of the year in 1996 and 2002, and the Best Designed Literary Fiction Book at the Australian Book Design Awards in 2014. Her research areas are graphic design ideation, graphic design history and material literacy.