Great article from The Age online today regarding the proliferation of knock off ‘designer’ furniture. I learned recently that Julia Gillard (whilst being PM) was photographed for a magazine spread sitting on a knock-off Arne Jacobsen’s egg chair, something that I thought was a real shame as the leader of the nation.. Anyway as an ideological supporter of the ADA (click here) I firmly believe that to support the design industry, designers should lead the community in buying originals only. I appreciate there is a counter argument for the fakes promoting good design and making good design available to the mass market, but the reality is that the fakes have none of the design or construction integrity of the originals, and rely on the marketing done by the originals to fuel sales.. I say save up, be patient and buy the real thing once its possible rather than wanting everything immediately regardless of its intrinsic versus perceived value.
The much celebrated Architecture firm McBride Charles Ryan came to us recently to develop a new website for their marketing and online presence. They came to us with mountains of content and a desire to showcase it logically in the one place. With their intricate process work, research, models, video’s, CAD plans and of course stunning photography in hand we developed the following; - www.mcbridecharlesryan.com.au
With a robust content management system and flash front end to first and foremost showcase the projects, maximized image areas, and high res full screen photography the images sing on the screen. We also built an easily manageable system for adding countless galleries dedicated to every stage of the job, creating for the keen user a highly rich and educational resource, and promoting MCR as generous educators with a transparent process. The site also features fullscreen videos, to achieve a constantly evolving and dynamic discourse through the news section.
Good friend of the studio Paul Beale and his very talented team from Electrolight have just wrapped up the lighting for the AAMI stadium, with the lighting component launched yesterday. It looks incredible big congratulations guys..
We’ve just come back from our annual Buro North ski trip to Falls Creek. Great to get away from the studio pressures and deadlines to let our hair out… (some more than others). Cracking day with blue skies and fresh snow Friday, whiteout Saturday but still good boarding/skiing and hangovers Sunday.
The wayfinding signage we developed for Falls Creek was doing its job; tough, bright and legible even in the snowstorm. Jess was quickest down the mountain, Giovanni the most daring and Jules the most dangerous!
The dress-up theme had a variety of interpretations, still not really sure what Dave was? (last photo).
Monash Art & Design week is on at the moment, info here, a new event on the ‘design events landscape’ and is aimed at students, advisers, professionals and interested public. Ive been asked to talk about ‘my journey’ (ala masterchef without the tears) and Buro North’s development over the last few years, see you there if your keen…
Better than TV (BTTV) is a night of entertainment for the easily distracted. Provocation, conversation and revolution.
This launch event next Friday 23rd July is inspired by the State of Design Festival theme “change by design” and features Architect Simon Knott (RRR’s The Architects & BKK), (me) Soren Luckins (Director of Buro North) and fashion designer Anthea van Kopplen (The Envelope). Also featuring the environmental reportage photography of Peter Bennetts.
BTTV invites the audience to come armed with their own design opinions and their will to share them as it is an open forum for provocative discussion. After the provocateurs say their piece, the audience will keep them on their toes and dig into the heart of design matters. This intimate event will be held in dynamic warehouse shell of the No Vacancy Gallery in hideaway lane ways of QV Melbourne - Click here to download the invitation, go here to book tickets or email ‘info@bttv.com.au‘ for tickets to this event.
We were recently engaged by the Design Institute of Australia (DIA) to develop an identity and suite of graphic material for their annual speaker series (Top 10×10) now in its 5th year.
The Top 10×10 series is a fast paced, informative, showroom-based forum that attracts over 200 professional designers each year. Top 6×6 will be held at Space Furniture’s spectacular showroom in Richmond, facilitating both the social and educational aspects of the event. The theme for Top 6×6 is ‘Design Icons’. Six of Australia’s leading designers will present a personal selection of six of their favourite designs and the reasons for their choice. They could be environments, objects, graphics or experiences.
In the lead up to the event, the audience will be invited to submit their own six design icons, which will be added to the Top 6×6 blog - Where you can win a Zanotta Sciangai coat stand…
Given the strong reference to 6 for the event, we developed the logotype based on a 6×6 grid, with intersecting lines creating the shapes of the letterforms. The shapes have been separated onto 6 different coloured stocks, and lasercut to produce the layered image, creating a depth of graphic that is relevant to the audience of interior designers and architects.
Thanks to Spicers for sponsoring the Optix paperstock for the invites, and Dave and Tim for spending an insane amount of time laboriously laser-cutting the different sheets, then weeding the cutouts and assembling each invitation by hand.!. Amazing work…
Just come back from a month recharging in Italy and Croatia. Part overdue break, part soaking up of creative inspiration and part gearing up for the challenges ahead… It really is incredible that its possible to take a laptop and iphone to the other side of the world, and recharge whilst not missing a beat (thanks to the guys back in the studio). Few highlights included the incredible hand rendered typography and killer signage in Rome, the new Zaha Hadid Maxxi Museum, the Calatrava bridge in Venice and a cracking Damien Hirst exhibition somewhere (cant remember.!.)
We have had a bit of press lately, being involved in the high profile MYER headoffice fitout with BVN Architecture led to a little story in last weeks Age Commercial Property about the the ability of graphics and signage to engage an audience and communicate a story; in MYER’s case a story about the heritage and history of this iconic Australian company. Also out last week was the latest Monument magazine with a feature on our speculative, sci-fi inspired ‘Future Wheel‘ project with Peter Bennetts and Fooch (Squint Opera)…
The logotype we produced for ‘BTTV’ - Better than TV, has just been featured in an exhibition in Japan & an upcoming book as part of the Tokyo Type Directors Club Annual Awards. We’re pretty stoked to be featured amongst such esteemed company, see here for more BTTV images. Look out soon for the next BTTV event as part of the State of Design Festival in July…
The International Green Dot awards were announced last month in the States and Buro North were fortunate to have been awarded 3rd place in the Design category for our ‘buro tree‘ amongst fairly interesting competition from Europe, Asia and North America. The Green Dot Award “honors excellence in innovative environmental projects, products and services” and “strives to reward and promote forward-thinking businesses that create environmentally sustainable products or services and to reward revolutionary green business plans and proposals”… So we are chuffed - Well done guys, thanks Dave..
Soren and I spent a day out at Triptych, a new residential tower beside the Arts Centre, art directing a campaign shoot last week. Fraser Marsden from (Earl Carter Studio) and a tight but talented crew for styling, hair and makeup, helped us bring together some stunning shots in and around the construction site.
A bit of post, a bespoke type treatment and some layout work later, the shots will be appearing in press across Melbourne in the coming weeks and months. We will also be getting onto some print and web design to round out the 2010 marketing package for our good friend Beatrice at Stable Properties.
Having been to a few future visioning workshops in the past that produced policy based strategies, I thought bugger it we should put some clever minds together and visualize our own proposition for Melbourne’s conceptually flawed Southern Star Big Wheel.
So together with the brilliant photographer Peter Bennetts and the super talented Fooch from Squint Opera we came up with the following reuse strategy; a greek windmill inspired sci-fi future with a ‘wind driven, solar sail energy collecting wheel, as a hub for a new fleet of flying steam powered trams’ to alleviate congestion in a newly greened Melbourne. Click on the images to view the full scale versions.
Although maybe not obvious, there are some serious ideas and questions amongst the madness.. How to efficiently adapt, reuse and re-function outdated infrastructure as we move to a more sustainable future. Anyway, the devil is in the detail, so click on the images and zoom around, fun food for thought….
Rilla is one of several creatives that make up the Rinzen group, and has garnered a lot of attention lately since releasing her own website, which you should have a look through here - www.byrilla.com
We thought we’d post photos of some recent Rilla work, below is the Pictopia exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and following that the Hotel Fox which again features some fantastic character illustrations…
The first post for 2010 must close out 2009… Our end of year XMas wrap-up took us to Jess’ farm (thanks Jess) on the coast for some hard earned relaxation. Dress up was alter-ego’s and we had everything from girl guides, grandmas and hippies to lecturers, racing drivers and tarts.
Our client Christmas present this year was the beer we brewed last month down at Barley Corn brewery. We developed two beers, one that tasted like the typeface Gravur, and one like the typeface Fakir.
Beer A
is reminiscent of a Japanese dry beer. Pure, crisp, and dry tasting beer A is brewed from malted barley and fine hops for a more sophisticated, clear taste. A font based on one of the key features of everyday life in Switzerland (standardization) Gravur is a digitized version of the engraved type on all Swis letterboxes and door bells. Like beer A the typeface is light, modern and international, is made precisely and accurately with a restricted set of ingredients, and goes well with fish and light summer flavours.
Beer B
is the definitive Belgian Strong Golden Ale. Brewed with Pilsner malt and white sugar, and hopped with Saaz hops. Beer B is traditional, European, and at 8.5% packs a real punch. Fakir, is a contemporary interpretation of gone letter-forms with origins in blackletter. Blackletter, a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to 1500 continued to be used for the German language until the 20th century. Like beer B, Fakir has its origins in longstanding European tradition, is heavy and robust and tastes great with heavy Christmas fare.
Buro North was approached recently to contribute towards a benefit exhibition held at The Commission Gallery, 28 – 30 November, run by friend of the studio, Rhys Gorgol. The exhibition was to raise money for youth with cancer through the Alfred Hospital, and carried the theme Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The sculpture we created (with a big thanks and nod to Dave and Ben who threw many hours tirelessly creating the artwork, then even more hours laboring over a laser cutter and assembly table), entitled Dot, is a physical representation of the visual and audio information of the first minute of Dorothy’s journey along the yellow brick road, in the 1939 film Wizard of Oz….
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