Project: Billy Hughes at War
We’ve been rather busy at the lab of late: much of our time has been spent on a site for the multi-local exhibition from Old Parliament House and the Shrine of Remembrance, Billy Hughes at War. We think it rocks.
A mix of super-clean xHTML and CSS, with a little JavaScript and Flash mixed in for that extra something. Be sure and check out the conscription poster builder, which lets you make and email posters to your friends; you can also vote in the conscription debate—one of the most divisive issues in Australian history.
Working Hard, Playing Long
We’re trying out a new work rhythm at the lab, coming in early, going home late, working hard from Monday to Thursday, then taking Fridays off. So far, so good: doing five days’ hours in four days concentrates our concentration, as it were, and gives us unstructured time on Fridays – time to think, time to play, time to paddle our new kayaks. The cost/benefit is good too: by reducing our working days by 20%, we get a 50% increase in our weekend! [If you really want to talk to us, email or call: the phone diverts, we have laptops.] Try it at your workplace; you won’t be disappointed.
Green Office
Mikey ducked out the other day and came back with some grass for the lab. It makes the office much brighter.
Icelab wins at PAGE awards
Our recent interactive for the National Museum of Australia, The Crimson Thread of Kinship just won the 2007 PAGE Award for Best Multimedia Production Over $5000.
As ever, when a job goes well it’s a combination of hard work, inspiration and a good client relationship. Go team!
AGDA Awards Get Photographic Love from Max
Max worked his booty off* last year with design goddess Jacinda Jackson on the Australian Graphic Designers Association awards audiovisuals (Michael came in at the last minute and helped out a bit to ensure he got an invite). Now the hard work’s paid off with some nice spreads in the Awards book. Check it.
*It’s just starting to grow back now. At last.
Recent work
Project: Oscar's Sketchbook
Created for the National Museum of Australia’s Captivating and Curious exhibition, this interactive is available both as a touchscreen kiosk at the Museum and online.
Built in Flash by Michael Honey and designed by Joe McKinley for ZOO, the interactive allows users to explore a sketchbook illustrated by Oscar, an aboriginal stockman working on a property in Queensland in 1898.
Oscar’s Sketchbook received a Highly Commended award in the 2006 Museums Australia Media and Publication Design Awards.
Independent.com.au gets the Icelab treatment
Independent already had a well-established Ruby on Rails backend: we gave it a whole new face which reinforced the strong brand identity.
Great design/HTML/CSS/JavaScript work from Max on this one with a Rails cameo by Tim Riley. Great support, too, from a client with a smart coding team and understanding management.
Less mass, more energy
There’s a temptation to try to optimise your business by cranking out the same thing, efficiently, again and again. It’s the agribusiness model: get good at doing one thing, then do it as cheaply as you can in the greatest volume. Because you need to keep volumes high, you need to market to people who don’t actually want or need your product – and that’s just what it is, a generic product, the same as the last, the same as the next.
But agribusiness monocultures are boring and brittle: they’re prone to disease, and they’re easily wiped out when the market shifts.
We’re more like hunter-gatherers: we improvise, adapt, try new approaches. For us, a new project is an opportunity to explore different ways of doing things: to learn from the past, but also to try to build for the future. It means we need to have a broader range of skills because we do different things at different times. We stay agile and light. It’s more diverse, and it’s more interesting.
Designed by humans
Michael Honey
Max Wheeler
Nathan McGinness On our bookshelf
Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design
Michael Bierut writes, we read.
XS Green: Big Ideas, Small Buildings
Tiny buildings that make us happy. And the world too.
Design Like You Give a Damn
Low-cost projects from around the world providing shelter, health care, education, and access to clean water, energy, and sanitation. Do more with less.
Phaidon Design Classics
Essential 3-volume compendium of 999 industrially designed objects, in chronological order. Arrived in a box the size of a microwave.
Edward Tufte: Beautiful Evidence
Beautiful Evidence is.
Interesting
Helvetica
Not the font (that goes without saying!), but the film. We found it ideal for a typographically nerdy DVD night. Bring your own beanbag!
NZ field laboratory?
We wish that were true. But have a look anyway - it's a cool project.
BLDGBLOG
Your brain will effervesce with architectural goodness.
What Design Is
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Video: William A. McDonough lecture
From Treehugger, a video of an excellent lecture by William A. McDonough, co-author of one of our favourite books, Cradle to Cradle. Inspiring stuff about what's really important. 45 minutes/95MB, so not for the short of time or bandwidth: call into the lab to watch it at our place if you like.
Unit 7, Kingston Warehouse,
71 Leichhardt St,
Kingston ACT 2604 Australia
Telephone +61 2 6162 0241
Facsimile +61 2 6162 0242