The simple act of playing is often taken for granted by people.

As children we adored our closest playground. As teenagers the playground is the place to chug down a cheap bottle of wine before a party. As young adults playgrounds are a part of the passing scenery. As young parents one learns to appreciate playgrounds that are interactive and engaging, because children adore and live for a thoughtful playground.

The simple act of playing is critical part of human development, as many life skills are developed in play — strength, balance, agility, problem solving, socialisation. Play is with us all for all of our lives, even if we don‘t realise it.

In the studio, play is a critical aspect of our design process and to quote our ‘All play‘ (a section from our html website) — the play feeds the work and the work feeds the play.

The play feeds the work

The heading says it all. We believe there is only one path to generating ideas and creative thinking. That is to draw upon dreams, influences and experiences that surrounds us and re-purpose these encounters into ones own version of dreams, information and experiences.

In day to day experience one can‘t help being influenced by what one encounters, whether the process is serendipitous or highly engineered. The simplest method of idea generation is finding something good and copying it. The extremes of the methods start with ambient influence, direct influence, imitation, mimicry to blatant plagiarism. It seems almost impossible to be original, unless one is God.

Michael Worthington from CAL Arts captured this process beautifully late one night playing pool with me in Melbourne — you are as original as your sources are obscure.

As with everyone, our obscurities are wide and varied. These experiences come to life in writing and images we make, that are developed mostly for the enjoyment of the process itself. It is no coincidence that these experiments and follies end up in the work we do for clients, or maybe for ourselves.

When Australiasian Playgrounds, now trading as A-Play, approached the studio to help re position their brand, we were only too willing to explore, debate, resolve and play. As part of the new direction A-Play is looking to enhance its product lines combining Australian manufacture, innovative design and sustainable technology. The former brand was a literal and awkward expression, and we felt that A-Play needed to be brand that is confident yet something you could bump into and not get hurt. The brand‘s simple confident forms reference ‘shape play‘ one of the first forms of play introduced to people. The abstract nature of the brand allowed the image to reference play, yet not be specific to an age — as A-Play produces equipment for junior play to adult fitness. The outcome also required a robust form allowing it to be cost effectively stamped, punched, embossed, screened and laser cut on a range material and surfaces.

As with any rebranding project, the brandmark was a good place to start and the refreshed communication approach will be extended to a range of applications. Thanks again to A-Play for making play part of our process.

Comment?