Category Archives: Design

Meeting at Damien’s place. Note the pie. Damn they were good pies!

Mood board exercise.

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re off on the right foot with INfront’s new rebranding. For the first time, we’re doing it right by paying an outside source to help us (we’ve had offers for “free” and we’ve also failed many times ourselves to get it right).

Yesterday Damien, Zann and I spent 3 hours in lock-down in an initial branding meeting. As clients we were guided through a very thorough process of trying to identify our brand as it lives today, and where we see it in future. Hard work, but I loved every minute of it. I’m excited, wish I could say more but I’ll keep it a little under wraps for now. More news as it comes!

If any of you have even the slightest creative bone in your body, you should get involved in this one. All you have to do is submit a visual entry (can even just be a photo), the theme is “WOMAN” and there are some huge prizes to be won ($11k’s worth!), free entry too so you’ve got nothing to lose.

For more details visit: http://www.australianinfront.com.au/involved

Simon Mundy, the Victorian President of the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA), has written a blog entry on his desktop blog in response to Andrew Moffitt’s opinion piece in desktop magazine’s May issue, where he posed the question ‘To join or not to join AGDA’.

For various reasons, AGDA was why I started The Australian INfront in 1999. I’ve never paid to join AGDA, mainly because I’ve never been convinced of the value of joining (no offense intended).

In the late 90′s I worked at a few design companies that were members of AGDA (all you have to do to be a member is pay their yearly fee) and they admitted to me that being allowed to have an AGDA badge on your web site (along side your Microsoft Certified Partner badge!) made them ‘look good’. In fact one of the AGDA councilors in the debate writes the following on the value of being an AGDA member:

Kudos: Put “Member: Australian Graphic Design Association” in your email signature and on your website. It’s (perhaps not) surprising how many clients take note and take you more seriously. Use it like a qualification or like accountants use “CPA”. And the more of us that do it the more powerful it becomes.

That’s pretty hilarious as it confirms this idea of paying to be a member, just so you can say you’re a member, to somehow make your design company seem more legitimate.

I’ve been around public forums to know how they work. There might only be a handful of people fighting in a room, but the fact is that thousands more people are reading the debate, and they’re making up their minds about who’s side to be on. I’m feeling sorry for Simon Mundy, who initiated the debate to try and convince everyone that joining AGDA is well worth the $250. The responses made by AGDA representatives read very defensive, which is a shame as they’ve got a golden opportunity here to listen to what people really want (IE: digest the feedback, have an AGDA meeting and then reply post meeting).

I tried my best to stay out of the debate, but in the end I had to chime in (couldn’t help myself!).

You can read, or join the debate here: http://desktopmag.com.au/blogs/agda-give-it-a-try

Reg Mombassa – what a guy. I love the man, his work and his great dry (and sharp!) sense of humour. I’d love an original, please, because after his talk, the prints I’ve got of his work just don’t cut the mustard.

This huge original Brett Whiteley was hanging just outside the conference theatre. I had a chance to admire it for a few minutes. It blows me away that an artwork of such huge value can be on display in a public venue, and no-one thinks to deface it. Gives me a little faith in this world, day and age for sure.

Ex-BWM staff drinks at The Rose. Some of the guys got pretty lose, always fun to see haha.

Semi Day 2. I snuck a snap in with long time design buddy Andrew Johnstone who founded DiK and runs the conference.

Laurence Ng and I. We’ve crossed paths many times over the years. He’s the publisher of IdN Magazine and it’s always great to see him. I’m hoping I can somehow work with him again sometime in the future.

I’ve been at Semi-Permanent the past couple of days at Darling Harbour. I’ve not been to one in a very long time, and the time before that I spoke at one. It’s still held at the same place, and there’s still 3,000 or so people (mostly design students) in attendance.

As the conference started (on Friday) I instantly realised how much hard work it is to pay full attention to someone speaking for one hour in a dark room. It reminded me of uni days. I could either A) fall asleep, or B) try to extract something out of their presentation. I chose path “B” and I managed to get something out of pretty much every speaker on day 1.

The standout speaker for me was Reg Mombassa who pretty much made a success of Dare Jenning’s “Mambo” fashion surf brand which was huge when I was growing up in high school. I wore a lot of Mambo gear back then and lots of my fave mambo gear had Reg’s work on it.

Later that night (after Semi) we hit The Rose for ex-BWM staff drinks as Christina used to work for BWM. I was the designated driver so I got kinda frustrated at the end of the night when people were starting to get pretty lose. I ended up being the designated Taxi driver too (great!).

Day 2 of the conference was today. It was harder work than yesterday but I’ve walked away with a little inspiration, which is what I was looking for. I want to get back into skateboarding, just a little. At least I want to start by designing my own deck.

Through the conference I’ve realised I’m missing ART, a lot. I used to have to make art. I think design killed this. I need to make art again, but without having to smoke weed. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m pretty hungry for it. I can only try. I’ve got nothing to lose!

PS: If you’re keen on getting a bit of a lowdown on the speakers and what they spoke about at Semi-Conference. Visit INfront where Damien has amazingly tried to document as many speakers as he could over the 2 days. Visit: www.australianinfront.com.au

Damien sent me a link to Australia’s hero soccer pro Harry Kewell’s Twitter page the other day. I didn’t get it (I’m still not twittering) but then he said “check out who Harry’s following”. Oh shiat! Mr Kewell’s following Australian INfront, haha, awesome!

INfront Nascence (version 4) launched in 2001.

I’ve been busy trawling through old drives and putting together an INfront Retrospective on the INfront forums. I founded The Australian INfront in 1999, and over the years a lot of content has gone missing offline, not to mention the names of people who really ought to be credited for making INfront what it is today.

It’s going to take a while to get all of this content back online, but it’s been a rewarding reflection for me already. I’m pretty sure I’ll get most of it up by the end of the month.

Visit: Australian INfront Retrospective

Just finished this simple but effective logotype design for Motor Culture, an automotive advertising network.