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Winter 2010

A new addition to Brighton, why?

In the suburbs of Australia, there is a transformation of domestic architecture taking place. Robin Boyd in 1960 wrote of this idea in a publication called – The Australian Ugliness, a seminal investigation Australian architecture.

From the independent weekly by Teri Louise Kelly

A nation of gross architectural incompetence and negligence where foreign opinions and plans override local initiatives. A stark, incomplete, “she’ll be right mate” attitude to planning, giant kitsch, plastic flowers, jobs for the boys, not what you know but who you know, old school ties, pseudo colonialism, faux Americanism hitched to successive short-sighted leadership … it all pretty much sounds like The Australian Ugliness could have been released this year.

Some 50 years later the wrecking balls are sounding through the suburbs of Melbourne, crushing masses of unremarkable yet well considered domestic dwellings for built outcomes squeezed on their plot in ones, twos, threes and fours.

For every vacant lot there is a promise of poor architecture, short sighted land management and a range of materials that are mostly skin deep, cheap and fragile. May good luck be with these owners in a decade or so; when the product guarantees expire, veneer flakes off, the external walls sag, silicon seals unfix and general wear and tear takes place – quite possibly the wreckers ball will be called upon again.

Over several months one has witnessed this palace rose out of the ground, like one strange mushroom. One wonders what this thing is trying to be – Neo Georgian architecture, crossed with desert chic. What have English Coach lights got to do with blonde rendered sand stone finish and round lights straight from the isles of supermarket hardware – alot it seems in the land of Design-It-Yourself.

In a street filled with mostly functional architecture, this dwelling appears to be a parody of the concept house, an art project even inspired by the works of Australian artist Callum Morton. Sadly the project seems to be a real outcome, as two dominant and separate dwellings are squeezed onto a suburban block, that once had one unremarkable home.

One thing that any budding artist or, designer learns from an early stage of their working life – is that if you are prepared to design and make something, then be prepared to have it critiqued. The process of critique helps all involved to understand and learn from an outcome in the hope that next time something is produced the result at the very least will be an improvement from the last expression. Let’s hope that the house being wrecked around the corner has a critical, studied and considered designer behind the plans – as unlikely as this situation will be.

May collaboration with the architectural process in range of variations from kit, off the plan homes to bespoke concepts be common place soon.

Read about Melbourne architect and writer Robin Boyd here

Read about artist Callum Morton here

Valhalla by artist Callum Morton, NGV Melbourne 2009

In closing it is worth while mentioning a comprehensive gallery of built projects recognised by the Australian Institute of Architecture Awards programme, for people looking to develop new buildings. There are countless projects here with detailed reviews and images representing a range of budgets.

Visit the AIA Awards gallery here

Hawthorne Residences – Arco Eco

The Enclave Affordable Housing – Bligh Voller Nield

With a gentle touch of the wrecker’s ball – Studio Pip and Co.

Found on Exhibition Street, North side btw Flinders St and Finders Ln

There is much debate of tags and their place in the community. It is hard to walk past a tag with such whim.

With all the sound bytes, images, ideas, products and junk crashing our way from all corners of the world, where do you start to find something Australian, what does it look like, can it be a sound, can it be a process?

We are constantly propositioned by the idea that a cultures’ identity broadly operates at two levels: the identity held by the outsider, and the identity held by locals. One idea is mostly clichés, while the other has many subtle levels of comprehension. In more direct terms one presentation is about koalas, the outback, the Sydney Opera house, while the other speaks of an ancient land and culture, multicultural society and a place not weighed down by its history.

As we understand the proposition that an Australian feel can be a subtle expression the process in which we make our work and the aesthetic of our work, it is becoming clear that what we do has an Australia feel about it.

This local design look is no unlike the impression one had of work one had encountered from New York, that had a New York feel, rather than an international (neo modernist) feel, from a variety of New Yorker designers (graphic design based rather than image making based) having a bookish, structured, playful in words yet not playful in expression, detail, lines, dots with numbers and icons in them, neat vector icons, centred setting, clean, neat, playbill/handbill, retro, boxed, mixes of classic serif and san serif fonts.

The work below is a nice example of the New York style doing a u-turn. Designer and friend Paul Sahre, is always one to question his influences, motives and his way of seeing. He started this short run silk screen poster for a literary festival in traditional New York style, but then the devil got on his shoulder, and a late afternoon turned into an all nighter and then a new arrived that left behind bookish influences are tripped in artful, spontaneous, lucid and personal.

A starting place for a poster from New York

The structure was dropped the random element remained

Random bubbles pushed away black type and found marks in red

Neo Koala – is there an Australian thing in there, Wayne?

One often looks outside of design to find what feels to be a process that dictates the outcome, rather than a look. What are some the markings of this rouge style? Is it work that feels like it is from Australia, yet has an insiders feel? Traits include: the traditional Australian cliches are screwed with, often works are raw, rough even, there is something mashed up about them, they often skew space and form rules, they combine media, their is something playful about it, works are often either process colour or mono, at times work feels like a big production on a budget – as it is often the way here, type ripped from crappy type down at the shops, tight type and line mashed with some crappy $2 shop toy.

Along with a selection of our output, we have ripped some work from other Melbourne and a Sydney based designers making their own version of “Neo Koala”

Old school Neo Koala

Yeah by artist John Campbell

Footscray Halal Meats 100% Ned Kelly 2008-09 by John Campbell

By Graeme Smith, Smith & Peony Press

By Graeme Smith, Smith & Peony Press

Now School Neo Koala

By 3 Deep Design

By Chase & Galley

By Chase & Galley

By Tin and Ed

By Tin and Ed

By Peter Salmon Lomas

By Aaron Moodie

Our Neo Koala

It common for us to dip into the Neo Koala cupboard and make some work from bit of found elements, a favourite is some early Saxton work circa 2001, recently Fringe 2008 and this odd ball ad we did for agda – we did many of those come to think of it.

by Studio Pip and Co circa 2001

by Studio Pip and Co circa 2001

by Studio Pip and Co circa 2008

So it seems the local creative expression is very much influenced by local resources, clients and stream of people seeing similar patterns in the local vernacular. Is there Neo Koala out there, rather than an US/French/English/German/Dutch/Swiss/Japanese design hybrid from Australia? Is Neo Koala real, or a late night blur? Comments welcome.

A few months ago we decided to stop writing about the ongoing transition of brands. Yet in this instance one can’t let the change of the “vic roads” brand go by without making some comment. Old school brands are fast becoming rare beasts.

The incumbent brand developed in 1989 seems to be inspired by the minimal graphic sensibilities of leading Australian designers of the time – such as Brian Sadgrove’s Futura inspired typeforms and bold colours used in graphic outcomes for Rio socks and Arts Victoria.

When we contacted Sadgrove for some insights on vicroads, he said that there seems to be no record of who designed it — “I have looked through my copy of their ‘Corporate Identity Manual’, just now and for the first time, it has no date and no evidence of who produced it… even the Chief Executive Officer’s introduction is anonymous! Sort of says it all.”

As unremarkable as the incumbent brand is nothing beats a bold uncomplicated brand when applying it to an ad, in print or on a road sign, as the brand itself stands out while complimenting a range of images and image styles.

The new brand of vicroads is by design company Oxygène, who have put in place a distinctive palette of graphic elements. As compared to a less complicated outcome, this new design is rich in graphic treatments – a new symbol and unique typeface employing a range of graphic effects.

Experience has shown that brands with a specific look can be restrictive in application over time. These restrictions become present as the brand ages, and the client seeks to expand and develop new and compelling presentations. A client in this instance makes the decision to break with the look and keep the brand, or modify the brand and update its presentation. The Telstra brand has gone through many such look and feel changes.

Graphic design developed in Australia is a rarely understood or appreciated profession and work practice. Typical of any major brand change is a raft of negative flack from the media and general public. Australians seem to have little time for the thinking and skill that goes into making a quality piece of communication work.

Following are some reactions to the vicroads brand change over. It doesn’t take long for any designer to become a little disheartened with feedback like this.

VicRoads just did an organisation-wide logo change. According to them, the old logo hadn’t changed in twenty years and they needed something to demonstrate that the way they do business with the public has changed.

What???

As far as I can see, the old VicRoads logo was FINE. It’s not like VicRoads have to compete with other road authorities for our business, we’re stuck with these retards, so why do they have to appear fresh and modern? Basically they’ve just wasted my rego fee on a graphic design company, change management consultants, signwriters and printing like $50,000 worth of stationery. I’d love to see the budget for the logo change but VicRoads is staying tight lipped about it. What a complete effing waste of my effing money! It’s a government department, they will never, ever, ever be fresh and modern in any sense of the word.

How about they reduce the stupid amount they charge for getting a new heavy vehicle endorsement licence printed, or reduce the rego fee by $2 per person, instead of making us sponsor this waste of time, money and paper?

The new logo is shit anyway.

– – –

Haha seems to be the done thing in this state, it’s just like the ridiculous amount of money they spent on that Melb city logo. Not only did that logo look crappy to begin with but print it in a black and white paper and it looses it’s depth and angles.

I’d just love for them to ask me to design such things, I might come up with anything better but geez for the price they pay I’m happy to design crap.

The bread company I used to work for paid $5 mill to change the logo on the bread packaging back in 2004 because they reckoned the customers couldn’t distinguish it well enough from the rivals bread. Less than 3 years down the track they redesigned it again to make it look similar to the rival in the hope the customers would pick it up by mistake.

Now we know why Vic Roads are changing all those road rules next week, it’s not for road safety or to bring us in line with other states it’s to confuse people so they can book them and use the money to pay for their new logo. It’s probably too much to ask them to put some of their money into training their staff in customer service too.

It is amazing to witness how many unqualified people are prepared to make an assessment of design work, and are prepared to employ their knowledge and insight to cast any amount of scathing criticism – It is no wonder that many designers are paranoid when their work is released. This style of feedback is typical of the media and public commentary and it seems that Australian design has little support in the community, and often the time, skills and fees used in a project attracts close and brutal scrutiny.

The last comment we leave with the Roads and Traffic Authority brand in New South Wales. The brand pictured was designed by Lunn Dyer (Tony Lunn and Ron Dyer) over twenty years ago too. For what it is worth, we think that the brand has at least another twenty years in it at least.

Thanks again to Mimmo and Brian for your imput.

Visit Brian Sadgrove Design here, and Oxygène here

Dear Studio,

How do you maintain a high standard of work throughout your portfolio? The reason why I ask is because a lot of my designs are driven by the client and committees, who have no experience in design. I am always told to ‘give what the client wants’, even though I know it will end with poor results. What can I do as a junior graphic designer to improve the situation?

Kindest regards,

Vincent

It is not often we are asked questions like the following.

While we ponder over the answer, we want to follow up this question with another question, and ask what our readers they think is the answer to finding balance the of making quality communication and addressing the commercial needs of the client:

How do you maintain a high standard of work throughout a portfolio while maintaining a list of clients confident that what you (the studio) produce work that does what it is meant to – generate awareness, sell tickets, grow market share…?

If any one out there has a comment we would be happy to post the differing points of view.