Adam Goodrum on Winning the Alessi Design Awards

For a young industrial designer, there are few things more exhilarating than seeing your own design and creative vision come to life. When designer Adam Goodrum won the Vogue Living Alessi Design Prize in 2015 for his egg cup ‘Roost’, he knew the opportunity to work with a giant like Alessi was going to be invaluable. Certainly, his stainless steel egg cup – a feat of angular, geometric design – was highly praised by the company’s president Alberto Alessi “for its simplicity, essentiality, precision and compactness”, but it was the entire experience that proved to be a career game-changer.

Inspired by his own childhood memory of collecting eggs as a kid each morning, Adam Goodrum designed a compact contraption which can be pulled apart to create two egg holders. “My wife collects egg cups — she just loves them — but they’re painful when they’re too small, as the egg perches precariously on top. And if they’re too big, it rattles around,” explained Goodrum of his design. “I really wanted to add a functional side. With the three points, the egg’s always going to find itself in the best position.”

It was this simple feat of clever design that won the judges over and Goodrum relished the opportunity to deal directly with the family-run company. “It was amazing to meet Alberto Alessi,” he recalls, “in our meeting he told me he would take home my prototypes and road test them, as he loves a boiled egg for breakfast.” It’s this singular experience that the designer recalls now, nearly four years later, and he says he “loves working with Italian companies [like Alessi]. Their passion is infectious; and their fanatical obsession for design [is] inspiring.”

As part of the prize for winning the coveted design award, Goodrum was invited to attend Salone del Mobile in Milan, and gain access to the Alessi factory in Italy, where his design was being put into production. “It was very exciting to visit the factory and see the perfectly polished first prototypes and the beautiful packaging,” he recollects.

For Goodrum, whose studio practice has led him to work with leading Australian design companies such as Tait and Cult, the Alessi relationship has only grown since. “Alessi is a company that I have admired for as long as I can remember,” he says. “Their whimsy, poetry and magical products have always inspired me.” Even on his first trip to Milan as an up-and-coming designer, he says “it seemed like Alessi was everywhere and larger than life on the design landscape.”

While winning the Vogue Living Alessi Design Prize is a considerable achievement, the real prize in Goodrum’s eyes is the bond he has forged with Alessi. “It’s an honour to have a product with such an iconic company. I feel very fortunate to now have a relationship; particularly one that allows me to send proposals through anytime and discuss briefs for new products,” he says. And even to this day, the novelty hasn’t worn off. “I still get a high when a see my egg cup being sold in different places throughout the world,” he says.