Phillip Zmood Collection

Full description

Collection of archival material relating to the working life of automotive designer Phillip Zmood including student examination results, correspondence, photographs, original designs and sketches for cars, car brochures and press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, awards. Phillip Zmood (1943- ) began his industrial design studies at RMIT in 1960, completing an Associate Diploma in Industrial Design 1964/65. During his student years Zmood received several design awards, including first place in the British Carriage and Automobile Manufacturer's 1962-63 Automobile Body Design Competition. The original drawing of the Gannet 1000 that won the competition, is among the original designs he has donated to the RMIT Design Archives. In 1965 Zmood commenced work as a staff designer at General Motors Holden and by 1966 was promoted to Assistant Chief Designer, and became a major contributor to the Monaro HQ vehicles, a series renowned for its contemporary styling. From 1969 to 1978 he was the Chief Designer at GMH’s Torana design studio, leading the team responsible for designing the LJ, LH and LX Toranas. A series designed to compete with rising popularity of smaller Japanese vehicles. After a stint in Germany from 1978 until 1980 as Chief Designer in GM’s Opel Advance Studio, Zmood returned to Melbourne in 1981 to work on the VK and VL Commodores in the position of Executive Designer reporting to GMH’s Director of Design, Leo Pruneau. In 1983 Zmood was appointed the first Australian Director of Design at GMH, a position he held until 1995. From 1995 to 1998 Zmood was GM & Holden Global Rear Wheel Drive General Manager at the GM Technical Centre in Michigan, USA and from 1998 to 2000 was responsible for setting up the design team for GM China, and its first Design Director. During this period Holden Design Australia became one of the most cost effective automotive design units in the world. Retiring from GMH, in 2002 Zmood established Euro Design Associates, an industrial design and design management consultancy. Phillip Zmood was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia's Hall of Fame in 1997. There are two accession lots 0021.2009, and the second the larger one 0017.2010, and one inventory. The collection is arranged chronologically and grouped by Design Studio. There are 15 boxes of materials. Ephemera, photographs, magazines and brochures, student works are housed in boxes 1 to 12, for example box 6 contains car brochures; box 7 photographs and drawings of clay models; box 10 ephemera relating to the GM Opal Design Studio in Germany; drawings for various design studios and models are grouped together, for example Box 13 holds drawings for Chevrolet/Detroit Studio 1967; Box 14 holds drawings for General Motors Holden and Gemini; Box 15 Drawings – GMH Torana Studio.