cseven

Semi-Permanent 2010

Chris Young — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:51:19 +0000

Last Friday and Saturday, Kristin and I attended Semi-Permanent in Auckland. It was an intensive couple of days with some clear stand-outs and all superbly hosted by the very funny Te Radar.

So here are my thoughts from the conference, in order of appearance…

Jessica Hische

I really enjoyed Jessica’s presentation and work – she seems to have a great sense of humour and also clearly enjoys her work. It’s a good thing she is based in the States, which is big enough to handle her specialisation; I dare say that the NZ market wouldn’t be able to sustain that. See her work at jessicahische.com and also Daily Drop Cap

Karen Walker & Michail Gherman

Whilst this segment felt slightly flat, I got a lot out of Gherman’s offerings in particular – I found him engaging and intelligent. Much of what they have done makes really good business sense, not-to-mention Walker’s great fashion. See her work at Karen Walker.

Frost Design

Many were a tad disappointed that Vince Frost, the man behind the studio, wasn’t able to attend S-P. They were represented by high-energy environmental designer Sarah Estens. I was really impressed by the range of work that this multi-disciplinary studio creates and how they collaborate with others to get the work done. My favourite: their work for Mike Walsh’s Futuretainment Check out Frost Design.

Duncan Speakman

Duncan began his presentation by standing centre-stage and not saying a word; thus introducing himself as a man who works in the sonic realm. This was a highly engaging and fascinating part of the day, possibly because it was not strictly design-related. Duncan’s ideas and activities certainly got you thinking. See him at duncanspeakman.net

Andrew Gordon of Pixar

I am a huge fan of Pixar’s work, so was quite excited to hear from one of their animators; but to be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by this spot. It certainly had some interesting information, and seeing the ‘office’ setup at Pixar was a real insight. Maybe I was expecting a bit much? Pixar

Chris Allen of The Light Surgeons

I think I was tired by the time Chris came on and found that his section dragged a bit, although I was impressed by the multi-layered nature of their work. It was interesting to see the Light Surgeon’s progression from old-school analogue technology to new tech. Take a look at The Light Surgeons.

Dick and Otis Frizzell

What a great way to start day two. I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between father and son, and also gained a great insight into one of NZ’s best know artists. Otis was great and is quite a multi-talented, if lo-tech, artist.

Nicolas Roope of Poke London

Nicolas started slowly, but in the end this turned out to be one of the highlights of S-P for me. I was hugely impressed by Poke’s work and the way that Nicolas had structured his presentation. Their work on The Teen’s Speech, BakerTweet and for Orange is superb. Take a look at some of their other work at Poke London.

Katrin Sonnleitner

Probably the segment I got the least from, so I won’t say much more than that.

Adrian Shaughnessy

Adrian was like everyone’s favourite design professor. I really enjoyed his presentation and what he had to say about design and business. His 15 Paradoxes of design were spot-on. See more of Adrian’s work at Unit Editions.

Gareth O’Brien of Buck

Another engaging and entertaining presentation. Gareth was well prepared for S-P and showed of some fantastic work – all presented by his puppet Garrot. Seeing the lengths that Buck went to for their 30-second Sundance TVC was inspiring. See Gareth’s personal site Graffe or check out Buck.

Storm Thorgerson

Billed as the headline of S-P 2010, Storm did not disappoint! Being a fan of a number of the bands that he has designed album covers for (Pink Floyd, Muse, Peter Gabriel amongst others), I loved hearing his explanations of how they were developed. Everything was delivered with dry British humour and made for a fitting end to the conference. People will be talking for a long time about Storm’s “F*#k Avatar 4D Experiment” – where he had everyone in the audience hold kiwi-fruit halves up over their eyes for a mass photograph.

All up Semi-Permanent 2010 was well worth the trip and I came away inspired. A big shout out to the gang from The Church and all the sponsors for a well organised and executed event.

An Amazing Event

Chris Young — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:18:11 +0000

The California Guitar Trio with guest bass guitarists Tony Levin and Guy Pratt, who have both played with Pink Floyd amongst others

G-Taranaki 2010 has come and gone this past weekend – in the best kind of way!

This was a project that we did a significant amount of work for, including designing the website, posters, press-ads, programme, banners, and most of the related collateral. It certainly kept us busy.

After putting so much into the event it was incredibly satisfying to go to the event and to see the work we had done put to good use. Not only that, but we got to see some of the world’s finest rock, blues and guitar musicians in action. It was brilliant!

We’ve also had some great feedback from event promoter Dan Allen: “Thanks for the great work on your end. I have never been associated with such a complete and wonderful team ever. Was so good to see the big smile on your face at the shows—that’s what it’s all about. Look forward to working with you again in the future.”

Our good friend and photographer Mark Harris was at the amazing Midnight Sessions and concerts and took some superb photos. Take a look at them here.

Ex Pink Floyd and Roxy Music bass guitarist Guy Pratt was a highlight

UFO Main Man Vinnie Moore got the crowd going

Blues Man Oli Brown got out and mixed it up with the crowd

Logo Lounge Selection

Chris Young — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:43:34 +0000

On Saturday I received an email informing me that two logos that I have designed will be going into the next Logo Lounge publication from Rockport: Logo Lounge Master Library: Shapes and Symbols.

Here are the logos:

Renovo is a specialist technology company working to develop ecologically friendly chemical products, hence the butterfly wings and use of green.

This was a concept for an in-house initiative at the New Plymouth District Council. They wanted a mark showing sustainable thinking across four departments that wasn’t clichéd. So I used a combination of paper, various shades of blue (NPDC’s brand colour is a dark blue), and a windmill.

Ironically they chose another concept, but this was my personal favourite of the ideas submitted.

Successful Bid Document

Chris Young — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:51:04 +0000

A well designed and presented document can often be the difference between a bid being successful or not.

One of our regular clients is law firm Auld Brewer Mazengarb & McEwen. One of their partners, Cherie Clarke, recently applied to become the Crown Solicitor for New Plymouth. We worked with Cherie and her team to design an expression of interest document containing the required application information.

Cherie’s application was successful and here’s what she had to say about C7′s involvement: “Thanks for all your hard work – it certainly had a big impact on the success of my expression of interest. The panel were very impressed with the final version and asked who had assisted me. So thanks so much.”

So if your business needs help with producing material that stands out, contact us and see how we can make a difference.

The C7 Studio

Chris Young — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:51:39 +0000

We’ve had a few requests from people for some idea of the look of the new Studio. So here’s a couple of shots…

For those who are wondering, the three clocks are for London, New Plymouth and New York in that order.

Silk Spa

Chris Young — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:24:40 +0000

The lovely ladies at Silk Spa approached us prior to starting up to help them launch their business with a great brand.

We worked closely with them to design their Logo, printed collateral, advertising templates, store signage, website and more.

The feedback that we received from them post project was phenomenally positive. We were able to help Silk Spa build a cohesive brand from the get-go which is already seeing benefits – after only nine months in business.

Wild West Bike Fest 2010

Chris Young — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:28:28 +0000

We worked with New Plymouth District Council to promote 2010 BikeWise month with a month long ‘Summer of Cycling’.

Material included A2 posters, an event guide, T-Shirts and web graphics. We set up a photo shoot in studio and brought on our friends and Klone to do some re-touching, and all-in-all had a lot of fun with this project.

G-Taranaki 2010

Chris Young — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:43:50 +0000

We have been working with the New Plymouth District Council on the branding and promotional material for the upcoming G-Taranaki International Music Week 2010.

The event was officially launched today with press advertising, website and Twitter page. More >

A bit about our new site.

Chris Young — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:54:06 +0000

Designer’s websites should be living documents – regularly being updated with fresh work in particular. The previous incarnation of our site was not that; it had been static for way too long. So late last year we began re-designing our site and investigating the various content-management systems available.

CMS & Themes
We spoke with developers and looked widely at what was available but kept coming back to WordPress, for a number of reasons which I won’t bore you with (contact me if you really want to know).

That then lead us to the question of how to ‘skin’ the site, which we have done using the ‘Coffee Break’ theme from WooThemes as the basis. I can imagine a few gasps of “What!? You didn’t design and build the site from scratch?” – actually we did, but the development costs of what we had designed would have been astronomical. Using a theme meant that the back-end was effectively done already, it simply needed a fresh face and our own content.

The face is done, the content is a work-in-progress.

Fonts
One of the biggest bugbears that designers have with the web is the limited amount of fonts available for use across browsers. Whilst working on the re-design, we came across Typekit, and have used it on this site. We are huge fans of ‘Museo Sans’, the font which we have used.

Set-up
Re-designing the site has come at a time when we are incredibly busy with design projects, so a decision was made to outsource the site set-up. Through the connection power of Twitter, we engaged Craig Stewart at Designko in Australia to help us build the site. He did this in record time and was (is) great to work with.

Where’s the Portfolio?
We have eight months worth of work to collate and figure out what to feature. In an ideal world, a large amount of this will happen over the last week of April, so watch this space…

Early days
This new site is still in its infancy, so will grow and change as we come to grips with WordPress and as the work continues to flow. We look forward to using the blog to engage, educate and inform and welcome constructive feedback and comment.

Live Baby Live!

Chris Young — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:48:39 +0000

After months of work and figuring out what we wanted to do, our new-look site is live!

Over the next week, I will be loading recent wok and posts and getting the site full of content and good things. So bear with me as things get done…