The weekend just passed heralds the fourth year of the Design Market in Melbourne.

The market was an idea that the studio developed while working with the National Design School, Swinburne, to compliment marketing their post and undergraduate programmes in 2003.

At the time Swinburne‘s marketing team passed up the idea and Andrew then proposed this idea to the team that developed the inaugural State of Design Festival programme for the Victoria state government in 2004. Andrew then devised the market‘s name Ready Made Market which was then renamed the the Melbourne Design Market in 2006. The studio also designed subsequent brands and material for the 2004 State of Design Festival, the Ready Made Market and the the Melbourne Design Market.

Melbourne Design Market brand was one of the last projects developed for the National Design Centre. The type utilises the custom typeface designed specifically for the National Design Centre — irreverently called Fluffy in response to the custom font that Garry Emery developed for the City of Melbourne called buff. The Melbourne Design Market, like many business names is difficult to design in type — one long word, two short words, hence the breaking of Melb-ourne to create a balanced piece of type design. If you think the that the “i“ in design looks like a floating balloon or lolly pop – you would be right, as the market is more like a fair or carnival for design.

Since 2003 the design market concept has been running successfully for four yeas in Melbourne and adopted in Sydney and attracts tens of thousands of patrons. It is exciting to witness an idea action into a presentation of design and its makers, that connects design directly with the public.

This market is not unlike the seven markets that we have attended in the past. The mood of the shoppers may have been sobered by the global financial crisis, however hundreds of transactions took place over the course of the day from $2 to $40 to keep our spirits high.

The Pip and Co stall was generally packed, and even though the majority of browsers were just browsing, it was enlightening to watch people interact with the studio‘s work, witness the projects people look at, field a range of questions about the work itself, and take in how people interacted with the humour, detail and presentation. Christine from Studio Round who was sharing our stall with the famous Hold all bags also share her insights of visual merchandising.

Developing design solutions is generally a closed process. It not often one has direct access to the public, over referring to market testing and consumer research. One can feel that they are working in isolation and it difficult to make sense of the antidotes, hunches and research results in the absences of a real audience.

Thank you again to everyone that visited our stall and interacted with our work. Again we recommend to every designer to sell out, develop products, present products to the public and participate directly in the market economy.

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.

Woof woof!

At the last minute Jardan asked the studio to look at the graphic component for their stand at the Design Ex in Melbourne this year. It is hard to look past a cute dog when time is limited.

Jardan is an Australian furniture manufacturer based in Melbourne visit jardan.com.au for details