Icelab feels the love at MAPDA Awards
The 2009 MAPDA Awards were good to Icelab this year, with two of our recent projects—Billy Hughes at War for Old Parliament House and the Crimson Thread of Kinship for the National Museum picking up Highly Commended in their respective categories. Yay!
Project: Eco Logical Australia
Eco Logical Australia, an Australia-wide environmental consultancy, asked us to redevelopment their website in late 2008. With only a month to complete the project we put together a design that is clean and friendly; simple without succumbing to commonplace corporate styles. A tailored installation of the Symphony content management system allows their staff to manage all aspects of the site.
Notable features include: adaptive templates that transform the layout structure as the content grows and changes; and customised print layouts for all sections of the site.
We have signage
We moved into our new offices around 6 months ago, but until recently, like a exclusive club, there was no sign on the door: you needed to know the cool people to get in. Well, we’ve become more accessible, but the fact that it took three of us to put up a small vinyl sign indicates that while we’re pros at some things, at others, we are rank amateurs.
Project: What's on Your Mind?
Old Parliament House opens its doors as the Museum of Australian Democracy in May 2009. As part of the opening celebrations, they’re holding a debate on a topic to be chosen by the people. The site is bright (why choose one colour when you can have them all?), there are some nice JavaScript interface touches to the voting experience, and a Symphony backend for easy maintenance.
Project: Cricketing Journeys
The National Museum of Australia’s new Australian Journeys redevelopment includes iconic objects which illustrate Australia’s connections to the wider world. Our touchscreen interactive contains dozens of images and multimedia from a range of archival sources. Aimed at a broad audience, the interactive is easy and fun for the casual browser, but the breadth of content rewards deep investigation. And it has Dennis Lillee in it.
Go visit, if only to watch the 1979 classic “Come on Aussie Come On” TV commercial.
Project: Old Parliament House redevelopment
After almost a year in the pipeline we put the finishing touches on the new Old Parliament House site last week. The comprehensive redesign and development includes a highly customised content management system that allows OPH staff to administer all aspects of the site, including an events calendar, online exhibition content (both new and old), news and education programs.
Max’s design pays respect to the building’s rich heritage and gives the institution the flexibility to adapt into its upcoming new role, in which multimedia and technology will play a crucial part. The build utilises super clean and accessible xHTML/CSS, some subtle JavaScript and integrates with Old Parliament House’s expanding presence on Flickr.
Dorkbot exhibition, featuring Nathan and Michael doing stuff with Processing
Nathan and Michael both have works in the Dorkbot exhibition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space in Manuka this November. We’ll rustle up some images once they finish the artworks…
Icelab Highly Commended at McFarlane Prize
Great news: our recent project Billy Hughes at War won Highly Commended for the McFarlane Prize for excellence in Australian Web Design. Yay!
More Plasmas than You Can Shake a Stick At
Eight(!) plasmas, four laptops, 400 square metres of stage and a whole lotta Keynote: IDLS 2008 at Darling Harbour.
Recent work
Project: IP Australia patent search interface
This is one we’ve been working on for a while, but which has only recently seen the light of (post-beta) day. IP Australia’s Auspat patent search system is, we confidently assert, the best in the world – or at least, the one with the fanciest HTML. Frontend design, HTML and DOM-stretching JavaScript by Max Wheeler; legacy-system-herding, big-iron JSP backend by IP Australia’s development team.
Project: Crimson Thread of Kinship embroidery
Flash interactive built for the National Museum of Australia. Nice to work on a project for such an impressive piece: the embroidery is 12m long and represents thousands of hours of work. Our approach for the interactive is to get out of way as much as possible and let the work speak for itself—although we couldn’t resist the pointer-as-needle conceit.
The Crimson Thread of Kinship was a finalist at the 14th AIMIA awards and won the 2007 PAGE Award for Best Multimedia Production Over $5000.
>> Launch the interactive from the NMA site.
Design for thinking
People hire designers for different reasons. Design for selling a product. Design for selling the designer. Design for its own sake. We like doing design for thinking. We like finding graceful, intelligent and sometimes beautiful ways to present information and tell a story.
It’s about telling the truth, not trying to hide it behind a glossy facade. It’s about making complex ideas understandable without dumbing them down. That’s one of the reasons we like working with museums and galleries, where considerable effort has been put into what’s being said—not just how to say it.
Designed by humans
Michael Honey
Max Wheeler
Nathan McGinness 
Karmin Cooper On our bookshelf
The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture
Great coffee-table book. I mean, it's the size of a coffee table. Are they trying to present the buildings as close to life-size as possible?
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.
Interesting
The right amount of complexity
"The problem is that while successful complex systems evolve from simple systems that work, not every simple system that works can support additional complexity. It’s not enough just to start simple, you have to start simple with a framework designed for future evolution and growth."
Ten Design Commandments
Dieter Rams, industrial designer for Vitsœ and Braun, lays down the laws.
Max Kerning
"When I look around, I see disorder in the world—needless chaos and messes. I sense panic and stress. In fact, I feel it myself. It rattles my soul and gives me a headache and a sourness of the stomach. This is because everywhere I am assaulted by sloppy text that is displeasing to the eye."
Small team, smart people
"I’ve seen it both ways. Working in a teams where the vast majority of the staff were multi-disciplined, and in teams where each section was clearly its own echo chamber to the point where it felt like the considerations of one team would always be ignored by the other. I can tell you that the former was not only infinitely more productive, but that the results were exponentially better."
Inventive Labs
Virginia came to visit recently. Props from one lab to another.
Unit 3/1, The Metropolitan,
1 Gordon St,
Canberra City ACT 2601 Australia
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