Designer and image maker Kat Macleod, from Ortolan, has put together her first show at Lamington Drive, which runs from November 7 to 29.

Kat has worked with the studio on a few projects over the years, notably the revered So Frenchy So Chic image making campaign, and as a collaborating image maker for the first Stephen paper campaign.

We wish Kat well in all her work and travels. Kat is a thoughtful, hardworking and inspired collaborator.

Get down and get yourself some, while we are lucky enough to have her in Melbourne.

Visit Kat’s studio here, visit Lamington Drive and the Jacky Winter Group here

Out of the blue a package from the USA with the US Postal Service’s 2007 holiday season issue – Holiday Knits – dropped into the studio. Holiday Knits is cute illustration and design at its best, the four stamps feature classic Christmas imagery designed and machine knitted by American illustrator Nancy Stahl – There is a dignified stag; a snow-dappled evergreen tree; a perky snowman sporting a top hat; and a whimsical teddy bear.

One hopes if this issue have matching scarves, beanies and jumpers available for the public to continue the Christmas cheer? One wants all four, in all variations.

Grill’d is a concept conceived by entrepeneur Simon Crowe, all in the name of bringing a healthy food product to the public. When Grill’d’s first store opened in 2004 in Hawthorn, Crowe and his partners brought their experiences from working with big corporates and their brands to the business. Design and presentation is critical to the brand’s success – from a slick approach to comprehensive trademark registration, to a vast range of interesting illustration assets.

The approach comes together when one encounters a store, or comes across a supergraphic, like this one at QV on Swanston Street, Melbourne – not a cliché food shot, or lifestyle images of perfect people to be seen. There is no reference to Grill’d’s graphic designer and illustrator anywhere – so whoever you are – nice one. Watch out Micky Ds.

This brand for the National Parks & Wildlife Service NSW, Australia, has been like this for over thirty years at least, may it be around in its current state for at least another thirty, sixty years. The quirky chevron, the line work, authentic graphic boomerang, the punctuation, solid orange and black, and Lyre Bird in full display – it makes for a graphic design experience that is unique, graphic, distinctive, a commercial brand and no sign of the tools or technology that rendered it. Redesign, refresh, evolve, revolve at your own risk – screen print it big, on a charcoal, orange, or biege t-shirt anyday.

The graphic design for the 2008 Melbourne Fringe Festival is close to hitting the street. We are not at liberty to preview the campaign, however the 27 August is an opportune time to talk about the font we choose to use for the 2008 campaign – Antique Olive.

Designed by Roger Excoffon in 1962 for the French foundry Olive, Antique Olive was designed to be the French equivalent to the Helvetica or Univers font families. It is a curious type family that intrigues from initial review. It’s extremes in stroke weights take on the aesthetics of a serif font, yet it’s squared and sometimes convex edges, with a mix up of brutal and barbed features, make for an awkward type experience. The x height of this font; the height from the baseline and mean line, is one of the largest in the world of font design. It has the potential to be highly legible if it wasn’t compromised by its quirky collection of ascenders and descenders. The “s” and “O” characters are distinctly top heavy, or upside down, and along with numerous character quirks position the design somewhere between a functional serif and a kooky display font on class A drugs.

Many graphic designers love to hate Antique Olive – it has too much personality for modernist design and their is nothing better than inflicting this typeface upon designers seeking clean and sleek design.

Antique Olive’s awkwardness made it an appealing choice for this year’s festival – as it complimented the festival’s thing of being on the edge, and potential questioning of mainstream thinking. It is not a font for the uninitiated layout designer. It is a typeface that requires it’s user to test and fine tune character size and weights, leading, character spacing, column widths and line breaks to achieve quality setting. Be prepared to test print the final result often – it looks very different on screen as apposed to the physical page.

The font weights are peculiar too, only some of the weights have an italic and across all of the range the kerning pairs are unpredictable. The italic overall is a disappointment, as the design is not a true italic that complements its roman counter part. One hopes that this quaint font may become a new project for a contemporary type designer to fine tune, yet maybe Antique Olives’ charm is about embracing its eccentricities.