The Moons are rock upstarts with a name on loan from the storming wild man, Keith Moon, taking musical nods from The Beatles, The Who, and Supergrass. This new Melbourne act approached the studio to develop a unique wordmark which has been adapted for CD packaging, merchandise and promotional print work.

The custom lettering was designed to be copied and doodled by fans. The lettering was devised with strong accentuated vertical shapes and lines to make the word mark memorable for would-be-graphic-designers to scribe on bags, exercise books and flat prominent surface.

Tommy Elliott, the band’s songwriter and bassist provided a very simple brief – I love the graphic on Keith Moon’s Lilly drum kit, can it look like this?

Visit The Moons here

Martel is the upholster’s upholster. Their busy, modest factory floor is testament to the quality work carried out there – from a much loved chesterman lounge, Featherstone chairs, a classic B&B sofa and upholstered wall panels for the much revered back bar at Melbourne’s Cookie bar and restaurant can be found waiting for work.

Martel’s identity was determined from it’s most basic form and then realised in complex variations. At its most stripped back form – we determined that Martel was an upper and lowercase identity. We then developed a customised and streamlined san serif typeface.

The project’s work continued with an exploration of a range of techiques and hand finishes used in upholsters’ stitching, pipings and detailing. The new font was then expressed in a wide range of these upholstery techiques. These new lettering expressions were used as single brands or wordmark expressions. We also developed illustrated graphic type based compositions that can be found on Martel’s postcards, business cards, the web, signing and even door handles.

Visit Martel here

The Studio has been working with Food & Desire to develop a new venue brand for the Harbour Room located at the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron in St Kilda. Recently refurbished under the direction of designer Chris Connell, this fine catering venue required a confident and adaptable brand first, print media and advertising collateral to follow.

The lettering is an adaption of a classic cut of typeface Avante Garde. Along with some new and existing font ligatures, the linking ‘OO’s references the Olympic Rings (as the RMYS was a 1956 Olympic Sailing venue) and the look is about Long Island Ice Teas and Gatsby by the bay. Thank you again to Food & Desire for the motivation and guidance.

Australian Greeting Charity Cards (AGCC) provides greeting cards for the not for profit sector to on sell for fundraising purposes.

The overall image pays tribute to Andrew’s twenty years in graphic design with references to American design of 1980’s prominent during his student days at Randwick Design School. This look is crossed a playful graphic interpretation of symbol made easy with contemporary software tools.

There are two kinds of symbol a portrait and landscape greeting card graphic incorporating the company’s initials. The symbol is designed to be used with the type, or on its own. The stationery is backed up with a range of graphic images based upon the type and shapes found in the type mark. The colour palette is a favourite of the client, designed to be black, white and red all over.

The studio is working with Joost to produce a brand and communication materials to accompany a project/event planned for Federation Square over November, December, January 2009 called the Green House.

Joost has a distinctive handwriting style and it is often used to communicate aspects of Joost’s work. Joost is a live wire – always making or doing, assembling or breaking down a string of projects. We managed to hold him down for a few minutes, then we armed him with a juicy pen and paper and asked him to write.

We then assembled the writing samples into a house graphic encapsulated the text. The house graphic will also be used a directional device and marker. The composition and form had the potential to be symetrical, or lined up. However we felt that an ordered, yet wayward composition best represents Joost’s artful and formal approach to making work. Say tuned for more information soon…

Visit Joost here

In 24 hours; from design brief through to going live, we assembled this holding page and stage 02 web scheme for Greenhouse’s web presence, an information based site is being finalised. Thanks to Lee at Irrepressible Wonton for putting it together so quickly. The Greenhouse has a unique menu by Shannon Bennett from Vue de Monde, which Earl Carter photographed.

Visit the Greenhouse here

More to come soon…