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.

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

Now School Neo Koala

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.

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.

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