Make a Date

It's that time of year again when designers burn the midnight oil, thrashing their brains for the next big creative calendar idea.

Today, calendars are not just tools that tell you what day or month it is, but serve a much more subtle role in our lives. A well-designed and aesthetically pleasing calendar can alter the visual aspect of a room and can even be a subject around which casual conversation can revolve.

In our minds a calendar plays an imperative role in our lives and defines us by our tastes and styles. Latest advancements in technology have made it possible for us to incorporate our schedules and events into calendars in a virtual form in our mobile devices and computers, but nothing beats the experience of owning a conventional calendar. There are many who prefer to own and use calendars that are physically present which they can touch and feel, an experience that cannot be replicated by modern technology.

Last year we did away with convention and produced the Qubric 2011+ a thumb drive with a preloaded series of desktop wallpaper calendars. Altough we had some great feedback it was mixed with a sense of disappointment that we had not produced our regular calendar that we had been producing for the past 5 years.

This year we have teamed up with our printer and paper supplier in China to produce a collaborative desk calendar version.

Here are some of the design works currently in progress. We'll be sharing more as the project progresses...

Design to a T

Now in its 4th year, the Singapore Grand Prix night race is a spectacular, adrenalin driven event set in the heart of Singapore. Our Creative Director Quentin Berryman had the enviable task of Track Marshall in 2010 and in 2011 he'll be attending the race again as Observer.

This year we also took the opportunity to enter the Race Official's t-shirt competition. Open only to the 2,000+ Race Officials, the brief was simply to develop an eye-catching design that any Race Official would be proud to wear. Here are some of the designs. Unfortunately we could only submit one. As you can imagine it was a tough choice.

Spoilt for choice, a screen grab from the designers desk top!

Submitted final version.

Some of the 'rejects'

A Starfish is Born

At the end of last year we were approached by a charity organisation based in Ubud, Bali. They ran a small language centre offering free English classes to Balinese children as well as paid private conversation classes in English, French and Japanese for adult members of the local Balinese community.
Devoted teachers from America, Canada and Australia joined together in support of Starfish and have been volunteering their years of education and experience to this common goal.
Their existing identity only appealed to the younger audience and with the growing number of adults, they came to us for advice and help.
Working for charities can be an exhaustive and sometimes labour intensive task, but on this occasion they were a joy to work with. Out of the several identities presented, the chosen version captured a whimsical, lighthearted feel which was inherent in their previous identity.
For more details visit their facebook fanpage.

Retailing Carrie K.

Carolyn Kan, known as Carrie to her friends, a talented up-and-coming jewelry designer based in Singapore, approached us to help with her first retail space. We jumped at the challenge to conceptualise a retail area that evoked her artisan style as well as displayed her hand made jewlery at its best.

Our first challenge was with Carrie K's existing identity. Originally produced in a small printers shop in Florence there was already some emotional attachment to the mark. Our task was to have the crown redrawn, ensuring it sat better with the type and was more robust in its applications to various mediums: email sign-offs to glass engraving. We sourced a very well known print-maker in the UK, Christopher Wormell who had just recently re-drawn the London Royal Ballet crest. His unique talent was perfect for what we needed and a real joy to work with such a talented craftsmen. Chistopher redrew the crown by hand after which he then converted the drawing to a digital format.

The second part of the challenge was to develop Carrie K's retail space which was in a modern designer fashion store, The Society of Black Sheep. A whimsical wardrobe design became the Carrie K. focal point and combined with cut-out mirrors for the jewelry, the
Carrie K. retail brand was born.

[Update: Carrie K was awarded the Best New Jewelry Designer, Elle Magazine 2010]

To see more images from the retail space visit: Carrie K on Flickr

Poems Journal

Some of the more interesting and rewarding projects we come across are those which become a labour of love. They seldom make money and hardly ever follow a time-line.
You embark on these projects fueled by a desire to produce an enlightened piece of work, something that evokes a response in the reader and ultimately expresses creativity in its purest form.

The Odd Poems and Slogans book, for our dear friend John O'Sullivan www.Irish-Poet.com was no exception. John is a frenetic poet, if he is not tapping away his poems into his Blackberry he is doodling them on the back of postcards. Our challenge was to bring all these ephemeral materials he had been collating, from childhood photos to Egyptian street signs, together to create a very personal journal. The project stretched over 18 months, and at one stage was even residing in our meeting room with our designer, Shermeen.

Now nearing the end it will soon be in print, but before we unveil it we thought you may like to see how it evolved. From a DHL box brimming with odd poems and slogans to John's personal journal of discovery.

See the book in full here.