When conceptualising the brandmark for Australia’s first national chain of outdoor public car markets we were inspired by the iconic symbols in traffic signs and road markings. Many pencil sketches later, we ended up with an identity that is truly unique and immediately understood. The proposition: ‘THE REAL DEAL’ reinforces the authenticity of the brand while the logo’s hand makes special appearances across various expressions.

Our friend, nature lover and champion bear-saver, turned thirty this week so we made him a card featuring a nonsense poem (with some no-nonsense bits):

You may have noticed the three little icons in the top right hand side of our website now. Does this means we have joined the social media age? Well, yes and no. Patrick has been using Facebook for ages now, to coordinate mates for gigs, and keep people informed about his DJ parties. And Facebook seems perfectly suited to such activity. However, I groan when I read the stuff most people put on their personal pages, so I rarely visit again. And as for corporate sites, do I really want to ‘friend’ Australian bananas, as a voice on the radio (in all seriousness) asked me the other day. And they weren’t even pyjama-wearing plantains! Our Facebook page will therefore only inform you about our work or events related to our work. It may not be using it as Mr Zuckerberg intended but we’ll see how we go. So called business gurus say you have to be on Facebook, you should tweet, you need Pinterest, etc. to be connected to your customers. But tweeting to us just seems like a pretend connection, or someone shouting ‘look at me!’ constantly. We prefer connecting face to face over a nice cup of tea.

Is there any sound more evocative than the sound of the sea? For me, it is an instant time-machine whisking me back to my youth idling away hours on a Wexford beach. Early morning on Bondi when the beach is quiet, I just have to close my eyes, listen to the lulling waves, and I am back in Ireland. But for a spell in London, I have always lived by the coast and I find being away from it for too long quite claustrophobic. Indeed, weekends in England tended to be bookended with desperate car trips to and from the coast to any beach we could find. This usually meant a sad, grey and stony affair on the south coast but the smells and the sounds were the same. Eyes closed, and it could be any beach in the world.

GoldbergBlaise is a boutique consultancy providing creative and customised strategic management and planning solutions by experienced senior managers. We liked the idea of GoldbergBlaise being the extra element inserted into a situation to explain or solve issues, to combine disparate things, to hold things together, and secure the right outcomes.

When Abigail Goldberg asked us to come up with a seasonal present (that wasn’t technically a present) detailing some her work highlights for 2012, we saw it as an opportunity to accentuate her cool black and white identity using evocative black and white photography. And that led to the gift that’s not a gift: a set of blank greeting cards packaged in a neat gift box. The imagery hints at various Goldberg Blaise projects, each outlined on the back of each card, but the overall impression is one of cool and efficient sophistication. It’s subtle, understated and clever, as befits Abigail herself.

A new identity for a carpet and floor cleaning start-up in Wanganui, New Zealand. We created the name, print advertisements, website and more to launch the identity with a bang. This one was great fun! Other than the obvious, we chose the elephant because it represents the company values of: strength, honour, reliability and patience plus we added a touch of Kiwi humor to make it stand out from the crowd.

We have just designed a new book for our mate Doug Spahn (Eyes of Silence) so every time I cradle another novel in my hands I am keenly aware of all the decisions that went into crafting some tree pulp for my eyes: the cover image, maybe a photo shoot, the typeface, the leading, the chapter headings, the page numbering, etc. But reading Sunset Park by Paul Auster, I have become more obsessed with one aspect of book design than any other: size. The wonderful Mr Auster has packed the details of at least six lives into a 224 page book which is only 104mm wide x 172mm high. It’s an American edition, a Picador St Martin’s paperback, with the hugely enviable price of US$7.99- To think that I was delighted to pay just AU$9.90 for it in Elizabeth’s secondhand bookstore in Newtown! And no, it’s not some dusty relic from the last century; this book was published in May 2011. But the joy of the diminutive size – to my European and Australianised eyes at least – is that it fits beautifully in one hand, meaning you can easily hold your tea, or gin, with the other, and it doesn’t require some crazy double pillow stacking or bizarre head manipulation for a comfortable bedtime read.

We completely overhauled Dancenorth’s website in 2012 creating a much more dynamic and visually arresting experience for the viewer. You can view the website here: www.dancenorth.com.au

When Jason came to see us in 2012 he was desperately searching for a short and ownable name (that was available as all types of URLs – .com, .com.au, etc.). We came up with a list of options and from that the beautifully snappy word ‘Yabbi’ was the winner. From there we developed the word mark, an App icon and seasonal variations of the logo.

The idea of using the Magritte painting ‘Les Amants’ came to us on a visit to the National Gallery in Canberra. It seemed the perfect choice for a book the examines the difficulties in communicating with your partner when a veil of illness engulfs them. Years of writing for Doug and many months of negotiations back and forth with the National Gallery, Viscopy and the Magritte estate in France have got us to this point – a beautifully printed book. It’s been worth it.