Surface Active Artwear Teespring store pops-up

April 16, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

April 2020
Dear Surface Dweller,

We’re excited to announce our fab Surface Active TeeSpring store has popped up! Our Surface Active Artwear celebrates some of the beautiful assets of New Zealand. Please pause & peruse our first two designs over at Teespring—Adelie penguins and Tuatara.

Adelie penguins, Antarctica

from Surface Active

Noisy, stinky & aggressive in reality but ain’t they cute? This design is a chuckle with penguins coming & going on the front and back. By the magic of art the white cotton of a plain teeshirt is transformed into Antarctic sea ice so this design is available on white only.

This crazy design is printed both front…

and back.

This imagery tells a tale of a dramatic before and after scene that unfolded when this formation of hungry Adelie penguins hesitated near the edge of the Antarctic sea ice, then they were suddenly faced with a leopard seal on the prowl in the waters just below.

This Adelie penguin all-over print, is available here for AUD$53.12

Credits

Design firm: Surface Active
Art direction: Design pARTners, Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh
Client: Surface Active
Designer, illustrator, desktop publishing: Shaun Waugh

©magentadot brands

A coolie steps off a wooden cargo boat gangplank. These magnificent Makassar schooners called Pinisiat at the port of Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta, Indonesia.

The right picture: Sunda Kelapa

August 28, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

As photographer & picture editor I demonstrate how to choose the right picture

A self assignment; visual anthropology at Sunda Kelapa, old harbour of Jakarta, Indonesia

The practice of self assignment can be one of a photographer’s most useful exercises. It is a highly personal experience in which the photographer becomes his own audience—there is no client to please, no specific requirements by which the photographs will be judged. It serves as a way to test your abilities should they ever be offered the “dream” assignment. This is an opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. Some good images may be captured in the bargain. The purpose beyond any such practice should be to move beyond the ordinary, to break the photographic cliché.
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Surface Active: Making waves in a sea of sameness

August 8, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / 4 Comments

T-shirts in the spirit of fun.

Surface Active T-shirts main neck label.

As an illustrative graphic designer, writer, desktop publisher; I was a design pARTner with Chrissie Terpstra in our in-house garment screenprinting studio. We learned that hand-pulled screenprinting is the medium of the hard labouring graphic artist.

Overview

Of course we were big fans of the humble T-shirt and by the mid 1980s they had become hot promotional items, garments on the outskirts of fashion, and a relatively new medium for the Graphic Designer’s art. What had for a long time been considered a poor medium for Graphic Design grew to an almost essential one.

All you have to do is walk down the street anywhere in the world since the early 80s to see what a ubiquitous promotional vehicle they have become. If you mail out 100 potential clients a direct mail brochure perhaps 200 people will see it. But mail out, or better yet, sell 100 T-shirts, and assuming they’re at all decent looking, you launch 100 walking billboards.
Keep on reading!

Events Management Group branding

June 28, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

EMG Events Management Group was a Christchurch firm established to support the performing arts and project manage the creation and development of large and small scale events such as outdoor theatre for the city council’s parks & recreation department, conferences, conventions and bespoke corporate events such as product launches and fundraisers.
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Pionair website, aircraft charter page, Tauck group photo centre, Pionair Cargo page to the left, Tailormade travel page to the right.

Pionair websites for N.Z. & Australia

June 27, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Pionair.com, Pionair.com.au overview

The Australian and New Zealand private air charter and inbound tourism wholesaling firms had two websites side-by-side, Pionair.com, and Pionair.com.au which I designed and maintained through three iterations between 2003–2009. In 2008 the new combination “affluent travel/private air charter/air cargo” themed redesign for both websites was briefed.
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Auto Restorations website homepage after redesign, showing Automotive Dreams marketing slideshow and table of links to website feature articles and pages.

Energise an image heavy website

April 9, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Energise an image heavy website by design

AUTO RESTORATIONS, 52 STEWART ST, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

Links to PDF of New Zealand Classic Car magazine cover story on the 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso

Making it to the cover of Classic Car magazine, the superior quality of Auto Restorations’ work speaks for itself in this 6 page cover article (linked).

Established in 1973 Auto Restorations has a story to tell. Every year it must mobilise new car restoration projects. To do this it relies on existing clientele, affluent, discerning people who might already know of the company by word of mouth, prestigious Concours D‘Elegance ‘First In Class’ wins, the publicity that generates in classic car enthusiasts’ media, their advertising, website and brochure—sales brochures, basically—designed to showcase the superior quality of the work they do. Showcase the process of restoration, the completed works, among them some of the most refined and rare cars in the world, and do it justice with advertising and promotional material that has the maximum effect and gives the impression to their select international clientele of an organization worthy of trusting one’s precious, valuable car to.

Well crafted and well made custom built motor cars, widely regarded as some of the most rare and beautiful, are the results of the restoration process, a process which varies.
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Four of Auto Restorations skilled workforce wheel a custom body Delage Roadster into position in the carpark.

Informal portraiture at work

April 6, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Informal portraiture in the workplace using available light

AUTO RESTORATIONS WORKSHOP, STEWART STREET, CHRISTCHURCH 2009–2012

When shooting informal portraiture avoid distraction from the most important purpose—getting photographs. These photos were shot and photo composites produced 2009–2012, they offer a historical profile of Auto Restorations during that time soon after Allan Wylie stepped up from the Mechanical Shop floor to the role of General Manager. Pictures of their employees on their redesigned website, and capabilities brochure in print helped Auto Restorations transform from a faceless company to people that their customers can relate to. The highly specialised, high value personal service that Auto Restorations’ workforce offer to customers is an advantage that they have over large companies, their multiple international Concours D’Elegance awards attest to this. Good photos of their skilled workforce reinforce this.
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Pomeroy’s staff group photo. Halloween Party 2008.

Pomeroy’s Petrifying Halloween Party 2008

March 29, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Pomeroy’s, that pit of petrifying pestilence! Be afraid—be very afraid!

POMEROY’S FIRST HALLOWEEN PARTY, FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER, 2008

Galleries of good social event photography should be an energetic expression of the real event, which was such a great time. The photos need to do justice to it by conveying all of the paranormal pestilence and deadly energy of the night, and the sense of place, a Halloween Party in Christchurch’s favourite old English pub.
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Friendly “Meet the Staff” articles — more than a mug shot

March 26, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

The Pomeroy’s Press welcoming “Meet the Staff” profile articles are more than a mug shot, going above and beyond showing the pub staff’s faces is important and beneficial to improve connection with patrons.

People pictures add life to The Pomeroy’s Press

March 25, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

What nicer way to illustrate Pomeroy’s Old Brewery Inn’s “social capital” as a local English style pub, between 2003–10, than to picture their local clientele?

Excellent design conveys care

March 22, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

POMEROY’S ON KILMORE BOUTIQUE ACCOMMODATION, CHRISTCHURCH

Excellent design conveys care, craftsmanship, professionalism, it is beautiful to see and fun to do

THE BEST DESIGN—design that moves people’s hearts and minds—has something more. It expresses a concept, a great underlying vision that combines imagination and wisdom. Without a great concept, it is fair to say, design is only superficial decoration. A great concept is what gives purpose to the communication art of design. The design of Pomeroy’s on Kilmore Boutique Accommodation’s brand and corporate identity components, from signage to print & web, to bathroom products is all about vision—the art of imagining and thinking and seeing a world that does not yet exist, and that needs graphic design to bring that to life.

Pomeroy’s on Kilmore boutique accommodation signage

Entrance to Pomeroy’s on Kilmore Boutique Accommodation.

Pomeroy’s on Kilmore Boutique Accomodation custom bathroom product range packaging.

Pomeroy’s on Kilmore custom bathroom product range packaging.

“Pomeroy’s and daughters and son” is a family business, having welcomed lots of guests through its doors over the previous eighteen months, in 2007–8 Steve and Victoria Pomeroy decided to complete their plans to fully refurbish, upgrade and rebrand the colonial villa, formerly known as Pomeroy’s B&B from 2006. Snug, comfortable Pomeroy’s on Kilmore Boutique Accommodation is centrally located next door to Christchurch’s own historic, English-style pub! Managed by Ava the atmosphere is private and personal, complete with delicious continental breakfast, what more could you ask for but their fantastic value tariff? Steve’s career in construction and Victoria’s flair for interior design came together in a great luxury b&b concept that positioned Pomeroy’s on Kilmore as a top of the line B&B.
Keep on reading!

Pomeroy’s pub newsletter

March 11, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

The restrained look for Pomeroy’s English style pub newsletter is pure news

POMEROY’S OLD BREWERY INN, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

THE QUARTERLY POMEROY’S Old Brewery Inn and restaurant newsletter had a name inspired by their brand, “The Pomeroy’s Press”, it was well-edited by Chrissie Terpstra who was also chief reporter between 2005–2010 and was designed and laid out with a look that made the news.
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