By James Wells
SYDNEY: The Breville Juice Fountain has become the first product to win two Australian Design Awards after the BJE200 was recognised at a black tie function in Sydney on Friday night.
The first Juice Fountain, the JE90, was Breville’s first entry into the competition in 2002 and took out the award.
Breville general manager – marketing, Cameron Searle, said the company’s sixth Australian Design Award was very satisfying.
“Winning an Australian Design Award is a major achievement and we are very proud to have been honoured again this year. Breville’s design team is constantly striving to achieve new heights in functionality and innovation and it is only through their hard work that we have won this award in 2006.”
Breville also won an Australian Design Award for a non-electrical product – the Tilting Mixing Bowl.
Products that receive an Australian Design Award, are products that have in the opinion of the judges, met and exceeded all judging criteria including innovation, intelligence, visual impact, functionality, originality, quality, ergonomics, safety, value for money and eco-design. They have also proven to add significant value to Australia’s cultural and design identity.
This year the Australian Design Awards received over 250 entries across 11 categories, which were then shortlisted to 104 by an international panel of designers from Dyson in America, Volvo in Sweden, LG in Korea, Philips in The Netherlands, and various Australian experts.
Several products manufactured sold through electrical stores were awarded with an Australian DesignMark – the second judging tier below the Australian Design Award winners.
Among the DesignMark winners were: the Electrolux Jeppe Utzon Barbecue, the Sunbeam EM6900 Twin Thermoblock Twin Pump espresso machine, the Breville BKE450 Moda kettle, the Philips HTS 8000 home theatre system.
Products which were eliminated after the first round of judging included the Philips 190C6 19-inch LCD monitor, the Breville BES200 Bar Vista espresso machine and four Sunbeam products – the WD5800/5810 wet to dry ionic hair straightener, the PB9500 Café Series blender, the EM0480 Café Series conical burr coffee grinder and the SM8650 StickMaster stick blender series.
In its submission to the Australian Design Awards, Housewares International senior designer David Davenport described the benefits of the BJE200 as being “compact and easy to clean” and using “a cyclonic action that maximises juice extraction”.
Davenport said he believed the essential elements of the product are its compactness, ease of use and cleaning, combined with its high performance.
“Design innovation has resulted in a fast spinning filter with a unique cyclonic action that maximizes juice by separating pulp to the integrated collector making removal, assembly and cleaning easy. Fewer parts, modular components and simplified design for assembly are crucial features of the advanced design,” Davenport said.
The compact design has been produced to meet the demand for a high performance juicer for kitchens with limited bench space. Despite its size the Juice Fountain provides high juice yield. The integration of pulp collection around the filter basket removes the need for a separate pulp container to store and clean. This closed system with tight tolerances maintained between the lid and the bowl prevent leakage, even at maximum load and speed.
The advanced design makes functionality and ease of use an integral feature of the appliance; all parts can be assembled in approximately five seconds. All components that require cleaning are dishwasher safe.