Professor Tony Parker

Qualifications:

Diploma Industrial Design (Wellington Polytechnic School of Design)

MDes (RCA London)

MSCD (UK)

Teaching and research interests:

Tony Parker is one of New Zealand's leading industrial designers. He has studied at the internationally acclaimed Royal College of Art (RCA), London and has a distinguished career in professional practice and design education spanning some twenty years. Tony Parker has designed award winning, commercially successful products for international markets and continues to design for leading New Zealand manufacturers. His research interests focus around form giving and drawing in industrial design. He is particularly interested in product identity and aesthetic innovation, styling and the human factors that influence the way designers give form to mass-produced products. These interests are strongly linked to the role of drawing in industrial design and the role this activity plays in the generation, development and communication of ideas and concepts. Tony teaches in the industrial design programme with extensive experience in design studio subjects, drawing and rendering. His students have won numerous national and international design awards and many are now working in international companies as successful professional industrial designers.

Areas of research expertise:

Industrial design

Product sketching and rendering

Aesthetics and styling

Design for desirability 

Research Highlights (Practice):

Design of the Hulme supercar concept.

Best Design Award, Concept/Experimental Category for the Hulme supercar, Designers Institute of New Zealand design awards 2005.

Industrial Design of a range of electric fence energizer products for Gallagher Group New Zealand. The products were designed for international export markets.

Industrial Design of a multi product fuel dispenser for PEC Fuel Pumps of New Zealand. The products were designed for use in petrol station forecourts in Australasia.