On Friday night we moseyed on down to Fed Square for what turned out to be more of a booze fuelled yuk-fest than a design competition. Iron Designer is basically a design-based stage show in the format of the TV cooking program, Iron Chef.
Competitors from different Melbourne design agencies were pitted against one another in the time based design-off and asked to incorporate ‘key ingredient’ themes into their designs. Not an easy task with themes like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Moscow and green.
The whole night was pretty light-hearted, due in large part, no doubt, to the complimentary booze. Unfortunately I suspect alcohol may have been a prohibitive factor in a lot of the design work, with one particular competitor finding it difficult to walk, let alone do any worth while designing. Someone smart once said that alcohol and ego are a bad mix. That point was proven several times over on Friday.
All in all it was a fun night though, with some hilarious rationales put forward for a truck load of wacky designs. Three university honours students eventually took out top spot, beating the crew from 21-19, and last year’s winners from Chase & Galley.