Design for Better: ThirdStory receives two Good Design Awards
ThirdStory has been recognised at the Australian Good Design Awards for the third year in a row, including with one Gold Award.
Our team received two prestigious awards at the 2025 ceremony: for Design Research (with Kiind) and Communication Design (with Anthologie and funded by the Department of Communities WA). It is an honour to have our approach and commitment to making systems more human acknowledged by the Good Design Awards jury. We are beyond proud to share these awards with our incredible partners and collaborators in this challenging work.
The Australian Good Design Awards is one of the world’s longest-running international design award programs. This year’s theme, “Design for Better”, underscores the vital role design plays in shaping a more balanced, inclusive, and sustainable world.
Humanising support systems for families of children with disabilities
ThirdStory won a Gold Good Design Award for its “innovative and empowering” Design Research in partnership with Kiind, an organisation supporting over 6000 families caring for children with disability and chronic conditions in WA. Families collaborated with researchers to build visual journey maps of their experiences navigating multiple systems - NDIS, health and education - which were synthesised into one illustrated journey map. This deeply human approach to capturing and communicating the impact of systems on families was heralded by the jury as “turning Lived Experience into a force for systemic change”. Find out more about this project here.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our team and partners. Their courage to lean into complexity and create work that truly matters is extraordinary. Great design isn’t a luxury. It’s absolutely necessary if we want systems that enable people and communities to thrive. Winning four Good Design Awards in three years is testament to the ambitious people around the world who believe, as we do, that better futures can and must be designed.”
Co-designing DFV primary prevention approaches with young people
Our team was also presented with a Good Design Award in Communication Design for This is Manly, our youth co-designed approach to the primary prevention of family and domestic violence. The creative digital and poster campaign, produced in collaboration with social impact agency Anthologie and grant funded by the Department of Communities WA, featured a range of men representing and discussing what it is to be manly. The Jury praised the “refreshing thinking” behind This is Manly, “an inspiring project that raises the bar” for the field of primary prevention. ThirdStory continues to build on the work of the first campaign, with additional support of Department of Communities WA, co-designing an intervention with men who are role models in their communities.
Read about This is Manly here and follow @this.is.manly on Instagram.
A third year of recognition for ThirdStory
The Awards recognise design excellence from around the world, across 13 Design Disciplines and more than 35 categories. Each entry undergoes a rigorous evaluation by over 80 international Jurors, assessed against three core criteria: Good Design, Design Innovation, and Design Impact.
ThirdStory is proud to have received acknowledgement from the Good Design Awards for three years running. In 2023, ThirdStory and Parkerville Children and Youth Services received a Gold Award for our radically personalised model of out-of-home care, shaped by the voices of children and young people. In 2024, we were also recognised with a Policy Design award for the collaborative design of a new school system with the Ministry of Education and the citizens of Bermuda.
Interested in working with ThirdStory on a future award-winning project?
Get in touch to arrange a chat.