Brita; like ourselves was raised on an Island. Officially part of Tasmania, Flinders Island is in the middle of Bass Strait/middle of nowhere.

In between writing highly informed and well constructed texts (unlike this) she has just started a new blog of visual stimuli that is well worth a visit, introducing Nigh Delilah. Brita also happens to work from a corner of our studio.

An oldie but a goodie and a perfect lead in to the weekend ahead.

On-top of the Psycho Tatt Parlour at the AGDA Design Fete, I’m running a half marathon bright and early on Sunday morning. Our team is taking sponsorship donations to support Bicycles for Humanity, an organisation that helps provide bikes for less advantaged folk to get them mobile.

JP is fishing for freshwater crayfish on the Murray River and Adam will most likely be hitting the surf coast.

Photographer Chris Jordan has documented the plight of of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, thousands and thousands of kilometres from the nearest continent.

To quote the statement: These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September, 2009, on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. The full gallery of images is here.

These have been on vivid in my mind for a week or so ever since I first came across them.

We’re really excited about collaborating with the incredibly talented Mr Paul Fuog of COÖP on The Psycho Tatt Parlour, as part of the AGDA Design Fete, this Saturday.

The Psycho Tatt Parlour will explore semiotics, or our response to basic symbolism and signs in an informal and interactive format alongside other fete stalls from the likes of Studio Round, Studio Pip & Co, Canyon, Spencer James, Motherbird and Chase & Galley. It’s all happening as part of this years State of Design Festival. The Psycho Tatt Parlour will be open from 10-5 this Saturday and is free for all. All the details are here.

Being keen riders, we’re proud to be part of the motley crew involved in the creation and inception of the inaugural Melbourne Bike Festival.

Headed by the tyre-less Pip Carrol, the Melbourne Bike fest is kicking off this November with 5 days of bike worship and related events. The identity we created is designed to reflect the intention of the festival, that is ‘to get more people riding by providing an accessible, non-competitive and celebratory event for bike riders of every ability and riding style’. We Rationalised this internally as a licorice all sorts identity that is inclusive of the aesthetic and interests of the full spectrum of cyclists, young, old, commuters, collectors, retro, cruisers, fixed, free, racers, maybe even lycra clad. This is achieved mostly through the lexicon of wheel symbols that will eventually be badges, stickers, coasters and hopefully bar plugs (right Pip?). So far it only appears online and as a logo in a few places but the roll out (pardon the pun) is going to be great.

Researching bike visuals is something that some of us are known to do in our spare time anyway, but this process produced some gems that are far too good not to share. For example: Bike Type and this flickr goldmine.

Being a project that happened between the cracks and mostly after dark, it was a pleasure to develop the visuals with Peptoloab, Carla McKee and the Talented Mr Rob Cordiner who seems to be spending more and more of his valuable time with us these days applying his craft on numerous projects.

After a solid few months of creative development, we are really enjoying the feedback on our concept for Rebrand Tasmania. If you haven’t already, check it out and let us know what you think.

A superb gallery of images, well worth sinking some time into over at Grey Hand Gang.Curated image bookmarking sites like these seem to be popping all over the web these days, some are good, some not. It’s always interesting to consider the curatorial intention and the role it plays on the emergence of memes. Memetics; or the modeling of cultural information transfer is a fascinating concept particularly in today’s environment where individuals spend so much time online and the ability to publish or broadcast has never been easier.

Emoh Ruo is an exhibition exploring Australian architecture in three modes – vernacular, built and speculative.

This is the latest is a series of projects that we have worked on with Cameron Bruhn and Jan van Schaik, extending on our proposal for the Creative Direction of the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition will be presented as part of the International Architecture Showcase at the London Festival of Architecture 2010, from Saturday the 19th of June and then travel to Australia in the coming months. We have worked on the identity, exhibition design, catalogue and collateral.

The name, while suggestive of indigenous antipodean language is quite simply, ‘Our Home’, backwards. The logotype we developed was inspired by a section of the exhibition that documents welcome signs from a range of Australian localities. Quoting the catalogue, “These curiously archaic signs tell us that we have arrived in a city, town or region – that we are here and not there. They silence the child’s voice from the back of the car that asks “Are we there yet?” These signs also speak of colonial settlement ambitions, civic pride and tourist promotion”. The result combined this archaic, decorative and informal reference with the gravity of the speculative work by the practices involved.

More images soon, in the meantime all the exhibition information is here.

Next week AGDA Victoria presents a night of lively discussion with John Warwicker of Tomato.

Tomato are widely recognised internationally for their distinctive output for a wide range of clients including international brands and cultural institutions as well as their self initiated projects and work for Underworld.

Through their design, process and music, Tomato/Underworld have and continue to be; a huge source of inspiration for our studio. It is for this reason that we jumped at the chance to design the promotional collateral for the event. More information on the event can be found here.

Over the past couple if months I have been fortunate to have been able to exercise the privilege of my position on the AGDA Victoria (Australian Graphic Design Association, Victoria) council to organise significant events such as this. AGDA Victoria is committed to delivering meaningful events for the benefit of AGDA members and the broader community. These events are organised by councilors who volunteer their time, and are made possible by support from industry.

I would encourage all designers to become involved in AGDA, if you have feedback, an idea for a similar event or would like your voice to be heard, you should contact the council via the AGDA site.

The latest in a series of collaborative projects with Minifie Nixon Architects, has just been realised. Cafe Bourgeois is located in the suddenly urban docklands area, at the base of the new Myer building. We were involved in the creation of the identity and interior graphic. To Quote MNA, The cafe identity and architecture are entwined, the spatial gymnastics implied by the wallpaper mirroring the ironic ambitions of the franchise name. From our end, the process of developing the wallpaper took several twists and turns to achieve the result that MNA were looking for, that was making the space feel more rhythmic and less box like. Here’s to collaboration.

Photography by Albert Comper