I want to thank all our clients who have been through with us. Thank you for the work, the trust and everything in between.

I’m off to do my Masters in Fine Arts at The University of Auckland (Elam School of Fine Arts) for one year. Not sure what’s gonna happen afterwards, but for now, it’s going to be an exciting and regenerating one-year experience.

Our last day of work on 20 Garrett Street is 12th of February. We’re having goodbye drinks and an Art Sale on the 13th, starting from 4:30pm (till the 17th), so if you’re reading this, come say goodbye and wish me luck. I’ll still be around for a week, but leave for Auckland on the 22nd of February. Antony is going to work at Capiche design, in case you’re looking for a design studio to take over from the work that we’ve been doing.

I also want to extend my gratitude to everyone who worked with me during those 7 and a half years:

1. Neil Sandbrook
2. Tony Anderson
3. Antony Brown
4. Victoria Kay (now Upton)
5. Hannah Ngai
6. Anoushka Isaac
7. Michael Mudge
8. Michael Wilson
9. Sarah Brueckner
10. Jonathon Toon
11. Alison Quodling
12. Amy Moffatt

Thank you for putting up with me and I hope the experience was a good one.

I will keep this website on, as long as I can, you can also head on to my personal website and read about what’s happening with me. I’ll still be on my old email and mobile if you need to get in touch.

‘Change is the only constant’

1. Measure

The measure is the length of a line of type. To a reader, long lines can be tiring and distracting. A long measure causes the reader’s eye to work harder to find the next line of type. For optimum readability you want the measure to be between 40-80 characters, including spaces. For a single-column design 65 characters is considered ideal.

2. Widows and Orphans

A widow is a short line or single word at the end of a paragraph. An orphan is a word or short line at the beginning or end of a column that is separated from the rest of the paragraph. Widows and Orphans affect readability. They can be avoided by entering manual line breaks.

3. Not Justified

Most applications create justified text by hideously stretching and squishing words and spaces. Using left aligned text (ragged-right) gives it more harmony and makes it much easier to read.

4. A clean rag

Be sure to keep the rag (the uneven side of the text) balanced. A good rag has a “soft” unevenness, without any lines that are too long or too short. A bad rag can be unsettling to the eye and distract the reader.

5. A Capital mistake

Giving emphasis to a word without interrupting the reader is important. NEVER use CAPITAL letters to accentuate words in running copy. They STICK OUT far too much spoiling the LOOK of the column or page. Italic is widely considered to be the ideal form of emphasis. Combinations such as caps-bold-italic are DISRUPTIVE and look clumsy.

Source: Erik Spiekermann’s Typo Tips http://www.fontshop.com/education/pdf/typo_tips.pdf

George started university (full-time) this February at Massey, studying towards his Post Graduate diploma in design. There are some updates due here, but we’re taking our time going through it, but it’ll come eventually once things settle down a bit.

George is also preparing for the New Zealand Art show in August. If you’re going to be in Wellington he would appreciate seeing you there.

Actu8 (George’s November 2011 exhibition) was a big success. Lots of positive feedback and growth there. We’ll try to update the ‘About’ page at some point, till then… be safe.

Custom designed ‘thank you’ cards.

Everyone likes to feel appreciated. ‘Thank you’ cards are just one way that our client wanted to show recognition for the hard work of their staff members.

The Alchemist designed a set of four A6 full colour cards drawing on the brand colours of the organisation, each with a different message of thanks.

Each card has a unique typographic design that uses words of praise from a variety of  languages, incorporating the multi-cultural aspect of their organisation.

George’s latest creative venture ACTU8, featuring screen-prints, collages and other personal work, had it’s premiere exhibition on Thursday the 27th of October at Thistle Hall, Cuba Street. It carried on over the weekend until Sunday the 30th, ending up being a fantastic success for everyone involved.

The opening night began steadily until the gallery was almost full to maximum capacity later in the evening. Around 200 people turned up over the course of the weekend, with many friendly faces arriving to celebrate George’s creative accomplishment.

For more information head to George’s portfolio website and personal blog, which includes his screen-print pricing for purchasing prints. He also will soon be updating his archives with detail images of his new work, and an insight into the creative process behind this latest exhibition.

Client: Family and Community Services, E Tu Whānau!

4 unique illustrations and accompanying poster designs.

The idea behind the E Tu Whānau campaign is about creating a future for our whānau, hapū, and iwi, in supporting the building blocks for positive change. For this poster series several Māori koru patterns were illustrated to represent the emotions surrounding each poster’s message. The color gradient’s chosen while being distinguishably different allow each poster to uniquely convey and embody it’s message while layered with a clear typographical hierarchy.

George’s third exhibition of fine art screen prints is coming up in a month’s time at Thistle Hall Gallery, on Cuba Street. He has been quite busy spending late nights at his studio putting it all together.

The image above, a small teaser from George, employs various collage elements of old maps [of London] from the early 1900s, along with his regular screen printing style, onto [marine] plywood. The dimensions are approximately 50cm wide by 60cm tall.

Act2/8 (Actuate) follows George’s previous two exhibitions also held at Thistle Hall [d:construct (2008) and e-motion (2009)] and continues the overall themes and undertones of the previous two. The first print starts with Change as the main subject and continues on through different themes based on personal ‘experiences’ and patterns.

Act2/8 will be showing from the 27th of October until the 30th.

Client: Oranges at Halftime

Exhibition branding, booklets, labels, documentation and paneling.

In celebration of the Rugby World Cup being held in New Zealand, as part of our work with the Eklektus group for Real New Zealand, we designed a visual identity package as well as the paneling for the Oranges at Halftime traveling exhibition. Encompassing the timely memory of New Zealand’s age old tradition of Rugby Union, our graphic and typographical styling takes inspiration from the appearance of packaging and old scrapbooks from the early to mid 20th Century.

The exhibition is currently making it’s way across the length of New Zealand beginning in Masterton on August 9th, and ending in Botany on the 16th of October. To find out when the exhibition will be nearest to you check out OrangesAtHalftime.co.nz.

Client: Pharmacy Guild

Custom vector logos with iconography.

This logo package was created for Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand to provide a fresh and lively aesthetic experience to symbolise a value adding system, for an upcoming web application suite. The cross icon and its enclosure were designed in accordance to the established PGNZ and PSL brands, creating visual ties between the identities, which act as a reference to the contribution, both organizations are playing, in the existence of GuildLink.

The styled logotype also acts as a friendly reminder of the uncomplicated and simple operation of the software, with the blues and golds of the colour palette, taken also from existing PGNZ and PSL brands, suggest professionalism and value for money.

Recently we experienced this, and quite literally got our hands dirty learning about letterpress printing at the Victoria University Wai-te-ata Press.

There we found this relic of printing history, the proof readers marks sheet.

Back in the day every tiny letter, comma, and full stop had to be set individually by hand. In addition, everything had to be set backwards, as the letterpress printing produces an impression in reverse.

To avoid mistakes, a proof was printed first to check any errors. A proof reader would check the proof marking any corrections to be made using the symbols shown.

Even though modern technology has made the printing process much simpler, documents still need to be proof read. In the publishing and business world, many of the same proof marks are still used.

It is interesting to note, the origin of some the typographical terms we use today came from this old printing technique. For example an em space, actually was an “em-quad” a metal spacer used in printing presses. And that leading used for line spacing was a thin piece of lead used between the rows of wooden type.

The progression of technology, has meant that over time some of the symbols are now out-dated. Today we do not need to worry about a letter printing backwards or that it would appear broken (meaning the wooden type block needed to be replaced). Modern technology removes the possibility of error or the unpredictable, but it is always good to remember how we got there.