Qube Calendar 2012

For Qube's 2012 calendar we wanted to combine the everyday with people's love of taking notes, leaving notes, jotting down, scribbling etc. The challenge was how to combine the two and still make it aesthetically pleasing and useful.

After some creative soul searching we developed a TAKE NOTE 'block' which combined 365 days with a unique set of notes on the reverse of each day. The box had two sides 'Take Note' on one side for the days and 'Noted' on the other for the note papers.

The national holidays were treated slightly differently using a more exotic stock and printing techniques including de-bossing and foil stamping.

We also included the Chinese calendar dates which was very typographically challenging.
The packaging also worked as a stand making the complete package versatile and unique.

Instagram.ography

One year ago Instagr.am launched into the world. Now nearly 50,000 people sign up each and every day to become part of the world’s most vibrant photo community – creating a catalog of imagery that allows us to explore the world in ways never thought possible. 


Instagr.am is a hugely popular photo-filter app that now has more than 9 million users and 250 million shared photos. It’s success is partly due to Steve Jobs, without whom Instagram would never have come into being. Every snapshot taken with Instagram is possible because of the hard work of timeless innovators at Apple. 

With it's Facebook and Twitter sharing capabilities and regular updates it is sure to gain even further ground... rumours are also surfacing for a Blackberry and Android version too.


We've been using Instagra.am for a while now, here are some of the images we've taken in the past, you can see more on our Flickr page.

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...

Run Rabbit, Run!

Chinese New Year of the Rabbit is upon us and this year we decided to put together a set of Hong Bao's. These are traditionally red packets containing money given out during family or social gatherings during Chinese New Year or at weddings.

There are no clear sources which trace the origin of the red envelope tradition although it is said during the Qing Dynasty the elderly would thread coins with a red string. The money was called yāsuì qián and was believed to have protected the elderly from sickness and death. The yāsuì qián was replaced by red envelopes when printing presses became more common.

So, bucking tradition we developed a series of silver 'red' packets which featured 3 different tangram rabbits. Tangram (seven boards of skill) originated in China and is a dissection puzzle game using seven shapes. The objective of the game was to form an outline of an object. There are approximately 5,900 different shapes that can be achieved, we managed 3!

Qubric 2011+

Having toyed with the idea of a thumb drive for a while and after several years of producing our much sort after calendar, we finally made the switch. It was a tough decision to move away from our ubiquitous annual calendar, but change is always good.

For those still missing our calendar, the 2GB thumb drive also had a selection of desktop wallpaper calendar months pre-loaded, shot by our resident shutterbug, Quentin.

The brief was to produce a limited edition, highly sort after, functional piece and the results speak for themselves with some great feedback including requests for more to build with!

View wallpapers here
All screen sizes available here