Stephen Recipe Publication / Spicers Paper / January 2008
Concept, publication design, writing, image making
*** one 2008 AGDA Distinction award

The studio has developed another promotion for a paper by Spicers Paper called Stephen. Stephen is new improved and new new new. A new range of colours — whites specifically, now has 50% recycled content, FSC certified and it is the prefect ingredient for any print communications.

The studio developed a recipe book of sorts, developing writing, image making and collaborating. Ten print colours, five different paper grades of Stephen later and printing by Gunn & Taylor a 40 page book is coming to a Studio near you soon.

Visit Spicers Paper for details

Saxton Paper writing kits, May 2007.

Saxton Paper’s brief to the studio is to develop promotional work that inspires the end user to explore the potential of paper, by communicating with paper in a meaningful and memorable fashion. The 2007 Saxton writing kits is the result.

There are two kits. Each kit has three designs, expressed as six greeting cards and matching writing paper, twelve envelopes with Saxton propaganda as a security pattern, and a writing guide all in a neat shipping envelope.

The designs take on a decorative and ambiguous look, allowing the end user to caste whatever meaning they deem appropriate to each design and occasion. Some of the designs are abstract, some are literal, some use raw pixels, others use flat colour, there are gradated and continuous tones, there is rustic collage and hard line work.

The project was in the studio and in production for six months. The concept, imagery, writing and products was developed by Andrew and Shelley, the project was printed and finished by Gunn & Taylor. We hope that the customers of Spicers Paper and Australian Paper enjoy using the kit, as much as we enjoyed bringing the idea to life.

Our client Australia Paper is very special. Their collaborative approach to developing the brief and work allowed us to do what we do best. Thank you again for this opportunity AP.

Note books with postcards insert in the cover pocket

A range of notebooks

Notebook covers and notebook

Notebooks — type version

Notebook with motif

Notebook with cover/poster

In January 2008 Spicers Paper commissioned the studio to continue the Saxton paper conversation with fine paper specifiers. A comprehensive campaign has been put together speaking of Saxton‘s exclusive distribution through Spicers Paper, the addition of several new paper weights, and FSC endorsement ( an internationally recognised green accreditation).

To avoid developing a typical environmental campaign we develop a concept around the notion of — the community rediscovering and getting back to the good life. The good life can be many things. It can be about — thinking in broader terms of the consequences of ones actions; the making of quality ideas; and developing durable choices over disposable choices.

This notion invites many interpretations and in the spirit of the abundance of outcomes of people and communities getting back to the good life, we invited a range Brooklyn based illustrator Edwina White, designers Tin & Ed, photographer Earl Carter and London based photographer Shara Henderson to develop their idea of what the good life might be.

The studio mapped out a communication programme which resulted in several items being realised across twelve months including… Saxton note books with poster wraps (4 kinds), a range of postcards (6 kinds) and print advertising, a new four colour guide, type guide and a stationery guide for small to medium printers.

We have documented the note book range will used stocks, mono and full colour printing and a range a finishes.

As part of the Good Life campaign the studio has produced for Saxton paper a guide for small to medium printers to assist their customers who utilise their local print shop to design and produce stationery systems. The guide taps into the notion that people outside of the design industry are looking to personalise, or design their stationery systems.

American graphic design writer Ellen Lupton explores this idea in her 2006 Princeton Architectural Press publication — D.I.Y. Design It Yourself, she states in the opening pages that — design is art people use.

The idea of non-designers designing can be quite threatening to design professionals — we say bring it on. At the very least it will help normal people (who don‘t design for a living) experience the process of making design. D.I.Y may also help normal people discover that making design isn‘t as easy as it looks, or that design doesn‘t happen magically on the computer.

Visit Saxton Paper here, visit Ellen Lupton‘s design-your-life journal here

2002 Saxton Paper promotion campaign / Australian Paper / Jan 2001
Concept, publication design, writing, image making
***  2002 AGDA Pinnacle award

Product promotions to event designs… an Australian paper brand looking to express a unique version of Australia. Over ten years we have produced over 50 promotions designed to be a handy part of customers world.

The project covered a range of expressions – paper based promotions, non paper based promotions, and ongoing brand building to students.

We love it.

Brand, one of the many variations

Brand

A typeface developed for Saxton

Typeface detai

Pape rmini notpads

Visual diaries — Australian theme

2002 Saxton Scholars call for entires

Saxton Beauty visual journals

Saxton Scholars poster

Saxton visual journal poster — Get in touch with your inner pirate

Saxton type guide

2007 Saxton Scholars call for entries

2005 Saxton Scholars image

Australians have no shortage of things to do in the summer months. Along with festivals, sporting fixtures and the revered outdoor dinner party, our client Moonlight Cinema has to contend with the emergence of several new outdoor cinema concepts as well.

Moonlight Cinema is one of the studio’s most exciting projects since its establishment in 2003. This campaign has allowed the studio to demonstrate its abilities across a range of varying mediums to a broad and diverse audience.

Since August 2006 last year several hundred press ads have been developed and dispatched, street posters, bus shelter posters, a comprehensive website, banner ads, postcards, display packaging, venue signing, staff uniforms, pass out stamps, ticketing templates, invitations, comp tickets, season passes, PR images, and a season magazine has managed to keep us thinking, doing and breathing Moonlight Cinema.

In 2006/2007 the campaign grew ticket sales and website visits from 500k to 1500k visits over the season. We also were given the opportunity to develop the image and marketing materials for the 2007/08 season.

Moonlight tree people

Cafe postcard dispenser

Programme postcards

Moonlight magazine cover

Moonlight magazine spread

Pass out stamp

Staff t-shirts

Street poster detail, note the absence of the process yellow pass

Street poster

Twelve month sales targets for the product was met in six months.

When Spicers Paper came to us and said we want you to help us create a new coated paper, they meant it. Naming, identity, writing, imaging and expression in one project. We asked ‘what if?’ and Spicers said, 95% of the time, go for it. If a paper could be a person its first name would be Stephen.

This projects has attracted a range of design excellence awards, and since been adapted for the European market by the Robert Horne Group in the United Kingdom and our studio in Melbourne.

The product brand

Note pad covers

Note pad covers

Pads with pages

Sample tags

Paper swatches

Pocket process colour guide cover

Process colour charts

Print exploration piece

A cultural fringe festival is an exciting graphic design and communication brief. By the very nature of being the “fringe“ event on the cultural landscape, there is an expectation for exciting thinking and innovative outcomes.

We felt that festival identity could be found within the do-it-your-self theme that informs many aspects of modern life. As individuals we are driven to self style, shape and customise our possessions, living spaces, and experiences. The proliferation of DIY content, reality televisions and abundance of choice allows one to enjoy, express and prosper in terms of self expression and self realisation.

The notion of D.I.Y. in contemporary culture shaped a presentation that explored a theme developed by philosopher Carl Jung — that everyone is a designer.

We presented a mash of ideas that touched on avatars, adult cutie toys, MacPaint, DIY design kits, pixels, default design tools, designing like a non-designer, big dots, more toys, a comedy developed by British actor and comedian Steve Coogan, the colour cyan, a clunky futuristic event brand, a finely developed event typeface and the notion of beautiful ugly.

We wanted a festival image that a school kid, a wayward mum, or earnest businessman with a pair of scissors could produce. We wanted to develop a curious and cute (by true definition) image that offered the public an enguaging alternative to the raft of polite graphic solutions that seem to dominate cultural and public events — a campaign that would bring a smile to Melburnians and its cultural endeavours.

The studio produced a vast suite of promotional materials including a comprehensive website programme, posters, flyers, apparel, banners, signs, and digital graphics to be rolled out across Melbourne in September and October.

Happy Fringe Melbourne.

Brand and festival image

Café poster

Café poster

Tram poster

Newspaper insert

Newspaper insert poster

Street poster – two sheet

Street banners

Street banner – detail

Staff apparel

Ticketing, flyers and event collateral

88 page festival guide and programme

Street poster detail

2 x sheet, street poster

Café poster

Cafe poster

72 page programme cover

Melbourne Fringe Festival 2008 HD from Peter Lundgren on Vimeo.

The Melbourne Fringe is one Australia’s most vibrant festival fostering emerging cultural talent. After the campaign the studio produced in 2007, the studio was invited back again in 2008 to participate in the communications programme executed in print, digital, advertising to apparel outcomes.

Design for events require flexible solutions that can be tailored for a range of shapes and sizes. We endeavoured to build into our outcomes a suite of flexible visual assets that allows the design to make the best of every application.

We believe that colour is one of the key elements employed in a campaign and after campaigns using of red, green, yellow, pink, blue it seemed orange was next. Orange and black are great colour combination to work with, however the shift in the orange‘s chroma, or brightness varies greatly from spot colour printing and 4 colour process printing – it is a colour that needs close attention.

The campaign in 2008 was developed around the idea of it being a project, or an event in its own right and we have extensively collaborated with Fringe. It is not your typical designer and client relationship — rather than setting briefs and doing work on computers, it is working out the opportunities and executing how to exploit them. A very nice way to do work.

In the wake of the campaign the studio developed in 2007, we set out to devise an image that contrasts, rather than compliments. 2007’s iconic graphic was superceded by a photographic/illustration. A linking factor is the two colour palette. Many of the print outcomes are executed with two colour printing.

The concept in 2008 explored the idea of alter ego. We explored the methods and means that people use to achieve their alter ego. We sort out the simplist of methods of acting out alter ego, something everybody could do – putting hands, or something as simple as a blank piece of card in front of one’s face, creates an interruption where a new form is allowed to take place. We projected onto the masks a set playful images of representing visual, physical, sound, written digital forms. The text boxes reference the technology tools that many of us use to shape the contemporary world. An image with an image inside another image is often a typical and complex mode that people use to interact with the world around them.

External signing – overall presentation

External signing – entry detail

External signing – window detail

External signing – internal detail

The studio was commissioned to develop a range of outcomes from print to apparel, posters to badges for Jardan’s big day in Sydney.

Image making sample

Conference brand, two of ten outcomes

Print ad (provocation ad, homage to Graeme Smith)

Print ad

As folded DL objects

Poster A

Poster B

Invites fronts 6 kinds

Programme liftout poster

Event programme – 40 page tabloid newspaper

The volunteers packing the conference bags all 1000

Conference bags in waiting

Conference actions by RMIT and Anoymous crew

Conference tea towel

Delegate bag

Conference badges

Volunteer tees

Delegate lanyard

Counter banner

Day 01 programme banner

Lecturn signing

AV title graphic

2010 AIA National Conference Extra/Ordinary from pixelshifter with Studio Pip and Co. on Vimeo.

extra/ordinary event collateral / National architecture conference
Australian Institute of Architects / September 2009
Brand, print, web, signing, motion, publication, apparel, social media
*** three 2010 AGDA Distinction awards, one 2010 AGDA Finalist award

The 2010 National Architecture Conference held in Sydney is Australia’s most anticipated forum exploring architecture. The speaker and event programme is put together by a guest creative director who sets the tone of the event. The communication outcomes we have developed have come about in collaboration with this year’s director Melanie Dodd.

The thematic for the conference theme that Ms Dodd put together is as follows:

extra/ordinary will dwell on the culture of the extraordinarily ordinary. As an antidote to the incessant abstractions of globalization, we will be gathering together those who have an enthusiasm for engaging with the contingency of the everyday: inventing new ways of operating; embracing collaborative approaches and initiating direct action on the ground. Producing outcomes that are innovative and utilitarian, provocative and pragmatic. Resolving ordinary problems in extraordinary ways.

Lateral approaches, rather than a perpetuation of the status quo, characterise these overlaps and collaborations in practice. Improvisation is a critical component and contingency rules. Out of the morass of limited budget and intractable problems lies the seed of innovation. Rather than being the product of hopeless compromise, constraint provokes profound transformations at the limits of practice.

2007 Departure Lounge by Timothy Hill, design by Fabio Ongarato Design

In the briefing process we reviewed graphic programmes from past conferences and benchmarked our approach to the communication with an outcome developed in with creative director Timothy Hill and design by Fabio Ongarato Design themed – departure lounge. The colour, playful nature of the graphic along the iconic appeal of Departure Lounge were qualities we felt helped shift perceptions and create a productive mood with architects attending the conference.

The global financial crisis foreshadowed this event. It was anticipated that attendances could be down based upon the recent economic downturn. We were briefed to come up with a programme that was highly visible, cost effective to produce and have a light touch in terms of its sustainablity. The event had close 1000 delegates attending the three days, the break even delegate number was meet one month conference, leaving several weeks for last minute registrations.

Concept rough

In terms of the work, all the outcomes we have developed communicate the idea of extra/ordinary. As a process we presented ordinary and available objects in extraordinary yet simple combinations. Our intention is to create contrast, variation and inventiveness in brands, paper stocks, type choices, images and layout so that every experience is varied yet linked.

The programme of works for the event was carried out over six months. Starting with a multi-faceted brand and image treatment, the project was the applied to a print ad campaign, website, promotional posters, invitations, programme, conference gifts and apparel, signing, av stills and motion graphics – over fifty outcomes some with multiple variations.

The success of any conference is about the mood one sets with the delegates. Architecture is often depicted in an austere, controlled and modern context. Even though many architecture brands share these qualities we felt that these qualities where not appropriate for creating a positive, lively and open mood fit for an intensive three day forum of sharing ideas, views and knowledge.

The final outcomes to be produced for the event included, the banner system, programme and conference AV still and motion graphics which introduced sessions, sponsors and speakers. We chose to use news printing for the programme as it meant we could provide work that could accommodate last minute changes and be printed and delivered in less than three days.

On Wednesday night (14 April), seven days before the conference, we uploaded the 40 page programme artwork. On Thursday morning we woke to the news of the Iceland volcano, that put airways in northern Europe in grid lock and subsequently knocked out half of the international speakers (who ended up telecasting live via satellite).

The motion graphics were being finalised on the weekend in between (17and 18 April), we re briefed digital designer Scott Richie of pixelshifter to start the intro graphic to include a volcano sequence. Mel Dodd the conference director, in passing mentioned that her opening speech would reference the volcano and we felt that it seemed appropriate to reference the volcano as a new graphic element.

Andrew attended the conference in Sydney and oversaw the bump in and bump out of the RMIT foyer actions, documented the conference and attended many of the sessions. The conference concluded last Saturday night (24 April).

The studio has developed many event based programmes and this project is to date the most productive, successful and exciting as body of communication work. An amazing collaboration had taken place, and the studio is indebted to the suppliers, the creative director Mel Dodd, and the team at the Institute – Paddy and Shahana, for putting in place a remarkable, intelligent and productive way of working.