visualizing marathon: growing pains

Last year I was part of a team in the Visualizing Marathon 2011: Sydney! A bunch of students across disciplines as varied as computer science, statistics, industrial design and visual communication came together in teams to visualise the problem laid out for us. Part of a global challenge across 5 cities, each city handed participants a challenge unique to their region and community. Ours?

The Challenge: Visualize the relationship between Australia’s demographics and the health care workforce. What are the current trends and specific stress points? As the population changes, how will the workforce need to respond? How does an overburdened workforce affect the country’s health?

With just 24 hours to come to grips with the data, the problem and come up with a deadly data visualisation, Tiia, Josephine and myself threw ourselves into it.

We were one of two teams awarded an honourable mention.

Our work wanted to illustrate the large amounts of data that explain the issue and help people come to grips with it. We created an illustrated infographic in just 24 hours that used metaphors around ‘growing pains‘ to show how the forecast changes to our population over the next twenty years will increase stress on a healthcare system that already under-supports people in rural areas and Indigenous Australians.

Interested in the process work?

Additional Credits: Tiia Metzke, Josephine Lie.

UTS projects: KW Doggett promotional booklet

Our prepress & print design ‘major’ project was a multi-page booklet for promoting the paper company, KW Doggett.

KW Doggett produces a large range of paper promotions throughout the year, and this booklet was designed to add a more whimsical, thoughtful note to the wide range of promotional material produced for the company. 

The ‘story’ of the booklet is created using excerpts from TS Eliot’s poem, Four Quartets, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, to build a thread of discovery and possibility (“towards the door we never opened… shall we follow?”).

I chose to design an A5 landscape, perfect bound booklet, highlighting their Curious Translucents, Conquerer CX22 (FSC Certified) and Mega Recycled (Silk) stocks. The promotional booklet for KW Doggett was designed to showcase the exceptional quality of KW Doggett’s papers, and their range of environmental and sustainable papers. Often this is done within the framework of ‘green awareness’, which can make it seem too different or expensive. This brochure uses sustainable paper choices, but doesn’t shout about it. It lets the quality of the paper speak for itself.

Printed on Curious Translucents in metallic PMS ink

Including paper specifications and appropriate logos was a project requirement

There were requirements to include specifications and detailed paper descriptions (like any other paper promotion), include minimum 3 different stocks, and use minimum 1 A2 and maximum 2 A2 double sided pages, in any format.

website design: looking for More?

Are you looking for more? Not satisfied with always trying to get more? More stuff, more sex, more friendship, more significance? Hunger for more justice, more hope about the end of the world, more free food? More is about the good news that Jesus offers more to life, more life eternally and more to life now!

Credo‘s biennnial mission//outreach event extravaganza is this year being organised and run across 3 university campuses, which is really exciting! Christian Union at Macquarie uni and Campus Bible Ministries at UWS are running More alongside us, sharing speakers and branding (concept and images by Indigo Hanlee), and also, a website.

James Kirsop and I designed and delivered the website, which needed to promote each campus’s events equally but clearly, so that people weren’t confused by what was happening at their uni.

It incorporates icons to represent the nature of each event and videos (edited by James Kirsop) on the speakers and the topics of the talks. Dave Miers and Greg Lee will be speaking at all three campuses on a range of topics. Both of them have excellent video manners!

Technical notes: I was a little disappointed with HTML5 video – I had very high hopes about its beauty and compatibility. In the end we went with YouTube videos and embedding, which seems to be very compatible, except for those with internet blocking software…

Check out the website, come along to one of the events, appreciate the pacman stylings of Indigo Hanlee who expertly came up with the initial concept of the design. She also helped out with making sure the website fit the branding of the other events.

website design: Pace Farm Eggs

What kept us busy over the summer, you might be wondering? Well, it wasn’t all days at the beach and summer road trips – instead James Kirsop and I were working on a promotional website for Pace Farm Eggs, an Australian family-owned egg company.

They ran a competition from February to April 2011 as a cross-promotion with Universal Studios, Illumination Entertainment and their Easter family movie release, ‘HOP‘, and they wanted an engaging new homepage to complement their online competition entry form.

The promotion was entered by purchasing a pack of specially marked eggs, and then entering online through a secure entry form, which randomly generated 100 instant winners of family movie passes, and stored the entrant’s details for the major prize draw – 7 family farmstays!

It was considerably successful – there were more than 6,000 visits to the website over the competition period and more than 3,000 people entered the competition – surpassing our client’s expectations for the website.

We also included content from Universal – a plot synopsis for the movie, colouring-in pages, link to the official HOP movie website, a trailer and more, to tie into the promotion. Aren’t the characters from the movie cute! The home page also had links to existing Pace Farm website content like kid-friendly recipes and craft ideas, and a header link let visitors go straight to the old homepage if they so desired.

Overall, a success! Happy clients, and a technically complex website put together by James Kirsop, myself and Gareth Parker (ASP.Net coding). We were overwhelmed by the responses and so excited to see that the competition was so successful. To check if you’re a winner, visit the Pace Farm Eggs homepage today and have a look at our work in action.

promoting in black and white: refugee week breakfast

How do you make an engaging flyer for an event that can be photocopied in black and white, and still be effective and not slip into the clipart cliche?

Hopefully this does what it’s intended to do. Slight shades of grey to make the text standout, but which should hold up to photocopying (which often takes out shades more than laser b&w printing does); clear font not standard out of Word (Meta by Erik Spiekermann) and a cute looking ‘R’ bring this together, I think.

What are your thoughts on designing for photocopied flyers?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oxfam/UTS Projects: small change, big difference

Part of the UTS Vis Comm course involves a subject called ‘Community Project’ in which students work together in groups to deliver design projects for community or non-profit groups that would otherwise not be able to afford or access design.

I worked with Phoebe Pulido, Lo Lam and Kin Wah Poon on this project, a campaign to use t-shirts and postcards to engage younger people (18-25) with the work of Oxfam, and enable them to see they can make a difference even through what seems like small actions to take. We developed the campaign from scratch, doing everything from copywriting to developing the visual style and communicating with the client about what they needed and wanted.

In a really encouraging outcome for us, the climate change postcard was distributed by AvantCard to high schools across Australia, 30,000 copies in all. They’re about to work on another release of the designs this year, so stay tuned.

It was quite challenging to work together, but it actually helped refine the design outcome and produce better work overall to have others to give feedback and inspiration.

    

I think they work best with the slogans on postcards and the larger detailed maps as large A2 or A3 posters. We also created swing tags to be attached to the sweatshop-free t-shirts. Head into an Oxfam shop to see them!

“The strength of the project is that it manages to break down a complex issues in to manageable small actions while not denying the complexities of these issues enabling us to all to make a big difference.”  – Oxfam response

promotional flyers for family events: Springwood/Woodford Church

An A5 flyer to go out to school children in special Scripture assemblies in the local area, and an A4 version as a poster for similar. I worked from a basic design given to improve the typographic hierarchy and make key information (date, location) more visible. The colours are brighter and more visually appealing, using contrasting colours to attract attention.

Similar format issues – for a flyer (probably the reverse side of the first flyer, I added colour, interest and highlighted important information, such as the time (important for families considering coming – knowing the time is essential). Using the Aardvark font to add interest with readability still a priority. I’m quite satisfied with the typographic outcomes of both, considering the short turnaround (ready for pre-press/print in less than 24 hours).

blog: gumnut’s growing…

I’m currently working on a new website design for Gumnut Kindergarten, which is why I haven’t been updating much.

The kindergarten is named after a gigantic and absolutely gorgeous eucalypt that provides shade to their playground. I was super impressed when I visited them to discuss the site at the atmosphere of the place (friendly, happy and a bit like a family) but also that it was backed up with really clear and serious policies about sun safety, healthy food, outside playtime and behaviour management. This is the sort of project you can support one-hundred-percent. The kindergarten is non-profit, running under the same roof as the church at St Faiths Narrabeen.

I’m always intrigued as I work on projects where little details and inspiration come from. The amount of versions I have always proves a troubling factor as I try to remember whether i was working on version 1.5 or 1.6(a)… Still, its starting to take shape, which is good.

James & I also have finished and are finalising the last details and post-launch tweaking on a website for Pace Farm Eggs, which I’ll write up for you shortly. Work gets in the way of blogging, doesn’t it!

the encounter camp – Lutanda

identity, type and image design

‘The Encounter’ is a holiday camp run for high school aged youth in the winter holidays. This DL Flyer was created to promote it with a 1 week turnaround from briefing to printing. I established an identity and branding for the camp, including all original imagery and creating a youth friendly and positive vibe.

See more details after the jump…