Category Archives: Design

Yes I was in a SAVAGE GARDEN music video


That’s me putting on the gas mask.

Funny story time!

I used to dress pretty punk at my first design job. I was asked by the agency next door to where I worked if I’d be interested in being in a rock clip for a band called SAVAGE GARDEN. The guys said I could come exactly as I was, and I thought “Hmmm, Savage Garden sounds kinda like SOUNDGARDEN so OK, why not!”.

We shot all day and were fed pizzas for lunch. During the break, the baddest dude there (I gave him a ciggie and he ripped the filter off it before lighting up) was on his phone to a mate yelling; “I’m filming for a couple of fags in this gay film clip”, thing is he said it so loud the Savage Garden guys heard it loud and clear. Fun times!

We shot all sorts of scenes morning to night and in the end Sony didn’t feel there was enough of the Savage Garden duo in the clip. They wanted way more close up face shots of the 2 guys so apparently a lot of footage of us was cut out. Probably a good thing, right?!

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Original Divine

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Page 1.

I’ve got it all wrong! Totally somehow forgot that my book DIVINE was created as a memory container; glancing at the artwork would trigger the pages I wrote back in high school. Turns out I’ve got pages and pages of rawness all done on a typewriter. This is page 1. Looking at page 1 of the book I can see I’ve left a lot of the text out of the book. I’m now thinking I have to re-read what I wrote on the typewriter, and not the illustrated “memory container” that I have hardbound before me.

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BA Design UNSW COFA – Umbrella Philosophy 1996

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Finding good stuff in my memory container (big plastic box of old diaries, letters, photos and more from the late 80’s to late 90’s). This one is a UNSW COFA Design Umbrella Philosophy I wrote when I was 20. I remember my lecturer at the time shaking his head when I read out the kissing analogy; I kinda stopped presenting and asked why, he said something along the lines of “only you Justin would be able to think of something like that”, was a relief so I ended up reading the rest of it out quite confidently!

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Hangs with the Midnight Garage Crew

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BEFORE (raw unedited).

after
AFTER.

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BEFORE.

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AFTER.

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Their logo design is way out of whack as you can see now that I’ve put a grid over it.

I hung out with the young guys from Midnight Garage yesterday. They’re good dudes who have always supported ZEN and EOMM. A little while back they started their own brand “Midnight Garage” and so far the guys have come up with a logo and have started to shoot at automotive events.

We had a good catch up, and ended up talking about all sorts of stuff (I might get these guys on the podcast at some point!), but I thought I’d take the time to show them how I frame in hopes it would rub off on them. Will gave me his memory card of shots from a meet the night before and I picked out both shots above to re-frame.

The top image is pretty straight forward, but just a note that it’s always better to shoot a few steps back at car meets rather than being so close you end up cropping parts of the car you’re shooting (which he had done in a fair few shots).

The second image was one of his worse images on the SD Card but hey my slight rotation and crop shows how you could sometimes even save a bad image with a little dynamic framing.

Now the logo file; I knew it wasn’t tight just looking at it, but I thought I’d explain why to the guys by putting it into photoshop then layering a grid over it. As you can see nothing lines up at all. The CREW is off centre, the left little octagon is too. The crew banner edges have different angles both the left and the right and the 3 lower case g’s look super repetitive and make this hand written style font obviously look like a font (a capital G would have been better for Garage). The way the triangle crops around the letters isn’t working either as it’s almost dynamic on the left side, but cut horizontally straight on the right side.

I made sure the guys realised that I was in no way at all having a go at their designer, he’s a junior/young and I’ve got way more experience, but it was awesome to be able to show the guys exactly why the logo didn’t look right to me. Once they saw all the things I saw they were taken aback (I mean these guys already have printed out stickers and T-Shirts of their logo too and they didn’t see all the faults that I saw).

Whilst I’m damn tempted to refine their existing logo (as it only needs a few tweaks here and there to make it a lot tighter) I’m thinking that I’ve got to stop being so generous in order to avoid those nasty resentment issues of mine!!! The guys are totally onto it in any case. I’m sure they’ll sort the logo out and I’m also sure their shots will be framed nicer going forwards too.

Like: https://www.facebook.com/midnight.garage.aus/

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ZEN PODCAST #008 – Design Talk

In this podcast I do the intro part of an hour long motivational/inspirational design talk I do at design schools all over Sydney.

Note: This is the first video I’ve made with Premiere, which is a LOT more complex than iMovie that’s for sure! The video looks to be the wrong format, and the file has ended up being massive in size (making for a VERY slow upload). I’ve not bothered with any transitions as I couldn’t figure it out intuitively and there’s no intro or outro. I’ve tried to synch the audio track to the footage and it’s come out better than the previous iMovie vids in that regard but it’s still out of whack.

I’ll get there!

PS: ZEN PODCASTS are also on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/zengarage/zenpodcast-008-design-talk?in=zengarage/sets/zen-podcasts
And on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/zen-podcast-001/id1336686598?mt=2

Posted in Design, Podcast | 2 Comments

WTAC Merch

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A box with my name on it!

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Ian gave me all the World Time Attack merch which featured the logo I designed. Love the hoodie especially! You can still pick some up here: https://wtacshop.com/collections/wtac%C2%AE-premium-collection

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Banned off Facebook for 30 Days

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Fuck you Mark Zuckerberg.

I’m slowly but surely getting over being banned off Facebook for 30 days (thanks to fuckers reporting my Australia Day photos). I don’t use email, and use messenger instead so communication has been FUCKED for me for the past week. I can see people’s messages, but can’t reply. I can’t make a post on my page to say I’ve been banned for 30 days. End of the day I only have myself to blame for putting a few too many eggs in the social media basket!

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ZEN Track Day Duffle Bag is in from Italy!

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ZEN Track Day Duffle Bags have landed from Italy!

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Made of genuine Nomex flame-resistant race suit material.

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Seatbelts for straps!

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All black hardware.

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Plenty of space for a helmet and shoes.

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Hand made with love by Attitude Supply in Italy.

Our ZEN Track Day Duffle Bags have landed from Italy! This has been years in the making, and it’s our first real product, real as in designed (IE: we didn’t just slap a ZEN logo on a bag, we designed this ground up!). It’s our new direction going forwards!

I’ve only made 50 of them and will keep 10 and sell the other 40 in the shop. The quality is so fucking unreal. I’m so stoked!

We’e priced these way under the usual 100% markup as we’d rather people rock them1 Find these bags in the shop!
SHOP: https://shop.zengarage.com.au/

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#gridlife

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Framing is everything.

Girls; I’m shooting again this year and I’ll shoot you a shitload better than guys with 3 times more instagram followers than I have.

I see SO many beautiful girls with HORRIBLE photos that show off nothing but bad framing, and well, framing is everything… some of these girls have gotten to 25k+ followers in a year… that’s a HUGE following (of guys who want to marry you).

Photographers: You can’t fake framing. You might get a billion likes on a photo of an ass, or tits, but you’d be kidding yourself if you take that as taking a good shot. I need to do a podcast/tutorial on framing to share. Framing is everything! Will do ASAP.

Posted in Design, Photography | 4 Comments

Through The White Glasses Logo Design

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Final TTWG logo design I’ve been working on with my current design junior Louis Queenin for Dino Dalle Carbonare’s upcoming channel ‘Through The White Glasses’.

Would look really nice on a business card design me thinks!

Subscribe early! Visit: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEAMJR1e79rKTjoMuRWuMwg/videos

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