‘Jewel Gecko - New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric.

Jewelled Gecko: lifelike graphics make a vivid impression

July 6, 2018 / / No Comments

Surface Active | Making waves in a sea of sameness.

Hyper-real graphics like the Jewel Gecko make a vivid impression. Why? Because people relate to them! Dramatic lifelike renderings of wildlife produce a prompt and typically positive response in a person’s mind. People relate to real things and enjoy them most. It is the route to why people relate to many of our eye-catching and impactful “SurfaceActive” wildlife-art-to-wear designs.

How did we do it? The technique of colour separating this design by hand involved breaking it down into eight separate designs, from which the screens are made. The separations are printed over each other, in layers to create the original hand screenprinted design. This crafty route is the only way to achieve the unparalleled vivid impression of the design.

It helps that beauty is permanent

Fashions come and go, then come around again, but the fundamentals stay. The inspiration for the designs came from getting to know superlative alpine/wildlife photographer Colin Monteith, and renowned wildlife photographer Rod Morris. We visited their image libraries to cherrypick the most beautiful jewels in their amazing archives that we could see had the potential to be developed into hand-separated wildlife art screen gems.
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Supergraphic MTC Volvo FH12 makeover

July 6, 2018 / / No Comments

MTC’s import Volvo FH12 had a makeover and now she’s sweet, in fact she’s a cherry!

The air is thick with ideas in the MagentaDot Brands studio, design is a classic discipline of endless potential and this brief from MTC Equipment was generously thrown wide open. The new livery design brief for the Volvo was given to me in a meeting concurrent with TruLine Civil’s in-house truck painter Andrew Gill, a true master of his trade. This kicked off a fruitful, illustrious collaboration with him and Darren Leeds of Leeding signs. It included the discussion of details like the quality of new alloy boilerplate and wheel arches, the exhaust stacks makeover, and the bold selection of the AA premium cherry red metallic lustre paint to boot! Metallic paint being an exceeding rare choice for long haul trucks to be finished in.
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BabyBliss nursery furniture collection A5, bifold landscape brochure

BabyBliss before & after

July 3, 2018 / / No Comments

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To design a brochure that sells, the key is simple: Keep all eyes on the product. Many people are not in the market for nursery furniture. The way to profits is to visualise those who are interested and present your nursery furniture to them. BabyBliss furniture is excellent; I can sell that. A consumer in the market for nursery furniture isn’t looking for a shop, they are looking for a product. My job is to make your product speak for itself. The target audience is intelligent and preoccupied. The brochure needs to be clear, to the point and concise. Don’t waste their time.
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Waitui Individual Gift Carton showing the duplex concept of the design

Packaging design portfolio

July 3, 2018 / / No Comments

Whether you are launching a new product or wanting a packaging upgrade for an established brand, the goal of packaging design is to attract customers’ attention, connect with them, be memorable, and persuade them to purchase your product over your competitors. For this purpose, packaging design must do more than simply inform your customers, it must also elicit emotions. Well designed packaging is attractive, impresses with its creativity and looks beautiful both on & off the shelf.

Kraft paper shopping Bag, The Arts Centre Market, Christchurch, Logo, Brand and identity systems, Illustration, Type design

Arts Centre Market | Rebrand

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Before & Aftereffects

May 2, 2018 / / No Comments

A picture is worth a thousand words but a good-looking picture is worth much more

Avoid the use of poor images for your promotions. The most successful publicity photos look lifelike, convincing, and are free of distracting clutter. Professional Photoshop retouching is a great way to correct poor photos to maximise the performance of your images. Being concerned with maximising image quality whether for reasons of pride if nothing else, is beside the point, because in the end everybody wants their pictures to look good on the web and in print.
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portrait with the fetching Stronger Chrischurch ballerina backdrop in Armagh Street, May 2015.

The rise & rise of Christchurch street art

August 17, 2017 / / No Comments

Watch This Space logo design contest entry

Popular Urban Art or vandalism of private property? That thorny contention was settled unequivocally in post-quake Christchurch 2011. What now is considered pro-social and broadly popular urban art has morphed out of counter culture to become one of the totems of the fine art world. The gallery showcases my comp entry and a selection from my Stronger Christchurch, and Rise street art photo libraries.

Front cover Watch This Space logo presentation document

The front cover of my Watch This Space logo presentation document depicts the logo visualised screenprinted onto the back of a woman’s red hoodie garment.

Since the 2011 earthquakes Street Art is emerging all over the central city of Christchurch, like life it finds a way to vitalize empty sections and animate the bare walls that dominate the landscape with vibrant colour and youthful design.
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Proof of concept visual of Heather’s helping hands’ screen printed in two colours on white T-shirt.

The elements of iconic design: Heather’s helping hands’ branding

August 10, 2017 / / No Comments

The iconic logo design elements of the “right” logo for my clients

To design the right logo for a business is crucial irrespective of the firm’s size. A successful design may meet the goals set in your design brief, but a truly enviable iconic design must also be relevant, relevant, enduring, distinctive, adaptable and for successful use in responsive web design, simple and bold are key criteria too.
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Sillicon Planet’s world-wide smile promo

August 3, 2017 / / No Comments

When it comes to promoting entertainers, creating distinction is key.

Because of the tremendous competition in the market, promotions for Circus-Arts performers, children’s entertainers, need to be well thought out, be comprehensive and also entertain the reader in the same manner as performers do in order to capture the attention of any audience world wide.

Sillicon Planet’s New Zealand audience is a mash-up of schools, festival and event organisers, corporate clientele and talent agencies.
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Packaging carton for MyoPace EMG Equipment for Physiotherapy

MyoPace EMG carton

July 25, 2017 / / No Comments

This beaut MyoPace packaging design uses simple, clear visual language as well as text as the approach to expressing the core messages and to simultaneously capture and hold the consumer’s attention.

The power of packaging for your brand

As a manufacturer it is your job to package your product well, advertise it to your audience nationally and internationally, take orders, ship your product, collect revenue, handle accounting and so on.
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MyoPace brochure makeover

July 20, 2017 / / No Comments

The MyoPace EMG product capabilities brochure presents the utility of a high tech piece of medical equipment beautifully and inexpensively. The brief was for a product brochure makeover. A plain sheet of paper is transformed into an engaging, easy-to-read A5 three-panel brochure with full bleed printing and two rollover folds.

By combining well thought out and carefully art directed studio photography, a large format pastel illustration and clear typography the new brochure tells a user-friendly story in words and pictures.
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Ker & Downey Classic New Zealand Journeys

July 16, 2017 / / No Comments

Ker & Downey, Classic New Zealand Journeys brochure

U.S. affluent travel specialists Ker & Downey position themselves as experts in experiential luxury travel, their travel advisors have been hand-crafting journeys for over fifty years but as of 2004 had not added itineraries in Australasia to their set of journeys due to a lack of infrastructure in the region.
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