Design agency Designworks looks to be going from strength to strength. Its Skycouch for Air New Zealand has picked up a finalist nomination at the Australian International Design Awards and, in line with Australian-orientated news, the agency has just announced it will open its first Australian office. With offices already in Auckland and Wellington, the agency last year also expanded to set up shop in Christchurch.
There was plenty of StopPress discussion after Designworks’ chief executive Sven Baker offered some suggestions for ways the design industry could help Christchurch recover from the quake—and not long after he narrowly avoided falling victim to it himself. Now Designworks and Jay Wester, owner of plumbing and heating supplier Leap Australasia Ltd, have launched the first initiative to come out of those discussions, a registered trust called letsfixit.org.nz that aims to get Christchurch’s in-home domestic water services re-connected pronto. And according to Baker, it’s already working, with the first volunteer plumbers expected to be on the ground in Christchurch in the next few days.
We have to mobilise the New Zealand design community around the relief and rebuild efforts in Christchurch. This means we have to coordinate our own meaningful industry response. We have an important role to play in assisting both now and throughout the rebuilding of a shattered city. And I think this can work at two levels.
Tapping into the love humans obviously have for digital/robotic dogs, Seymour is now the face of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Going Digital campaign, with Designworks’ animated canine setting out on a mission to let New Zealanders know the country is switching off its analogue broadcast system and moving to digital broadcasting between September 2012 and November 2013.
… as Designworks gets its hands on an experienced British interactive campaigner; 18 more PR practitioners stick an internationally-recognised certificate on their fridge; Dubsat New Zealand announces a new general manager; Young & Shand add a couple more digi-boffins to the roster; and a new job site for the creative industries in Australia and New Zealand goes live.
It’s been almost 18 months in the making, and yesterday, just down the road from the giant salmon and New Zealand’s longest bridge, Dominion Breweries ferried a group of 150 publicans, internal stakeholders and a few filthy journalists to a farm near Rakaia to launch the newest brew in the Monteith’s range, an ultra-premium, hyper-local, “serious beer” called Single Source that aims to tell the story of what’s inside the bottle and recognise those responsible for creating it.
The finalists have been announced for the 2010 Best Awards. And, from cool album covers to modern buildings, from striking packaging to branding and identity, it’s a who’s who and what’s what of New Zealand’s design scene.
Wondering what to get the blog-hater who has everything? Well, young Wellington designer Josh Barr has the answer: Blog Roll, a sculptural piece that “challenges the notion of graphic design as two-dimensional and questions the value of digital communication”. And it’s so good it’s been selected to show at the upcoming Anti Design Festival in London.
It wasn’t too long ago that Designworks – and, possibly, the entire design community – was celebrating a big win at the recent 2010 Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards. And now it’s got some more positive news to crow about, with a new branch set to open in Christchurch.
In a year where the profession of design claims to have been devalued by the Super City logo competition, Designworks has bucked the trend and restored a bit of pride, taking out the Supreme Award at the 2010 Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards last night.
Starburst, snowflake, asterisk, abstract wires? Your guess is as good as ours in describing Telecom’s new logo, designed by Designworks.
“What we are saying here to people is that this is all about you. It is literally whatever you want it to be. This is about self-expression,” says Telecom …