Bling-meets-boxboard, Boccalatte’s new business card.

Collect your limited edtion card, if you see us on the street ask us for one!

The River Project considers the Upper Georges River that runs through south west Sydney within the larger context of river systems of Asia and the Pacific by bringing together artists from Australia, China, India, Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam whose work explores river systems. River Systems reflect our interconnectedness, our fragility and our history. The way we engage with rivers today tells us much about who we are as a community.

The River Project is an exhibition at Campbelltown Arts Centre.

Check out some of the making process from the project or our journey to Campbelltown for the opening night.

The River Project illustration began with the data associated with the lengths of the rivers. Martin crunched the numbers in open-office’s spreadsheet app to create the basic chart.

crunch

The basis of the illustration created with open office 'spreadsheet' app

After outputting the chart to PDF, Lou worked her Illustrator magic and created the final illustration using Adobe Illustrator.

Lou's conversion from open office output to final Illustration

From Lou’s computer-based illustration, Martin proposed a watercolour option.

Back to basics using a pair of compasses, technical drawing pencils and paint.

Was Martin only doing this watercolour option so he could justify making dozens of perfect little prussian blue swatches?

The final watercolour palette

the final pencil and watercolour illustration

The train trip in

*AMAZING SHOPPING*

Hipster outfits

Real aussie men

$3 Beers at the 'Catho' a.k.a Campbelltown Catholic Club

…and the reason for all this, the River Project exhibition… (the book will be posted on our site shortly!)

Catalyst is a member-based not for profit policy network founded in 2007 to organise progressive policy renewal. This poster summarises the results of their recent survey on Attitudes to Corporate Australia.

Find out more about Catalyst Australia

Designer Sushi invited a diverse range of designers across different disciplines to participate in an exciting collaborative project using the contents of a sushi box filled with diverse, everyday materials as the basis for creating fresh ideas and concepts resulting in a completed work that will be exhibited at metalab during Sydney Design ‘10.

In my little random box, I received a strip of upholstery tape, cotton reels, copper balls, carpet, plastic numbers and bits that go around a champagne cork.  

The copper balls reminded me of a weird experience I had in a McSweeney’s bookshop in Brooklyn, I had a few years ago. Before Dave Eggers created his now pretty famous Pirate Supply Shop and Super Hero Supply Shop he has an even smaller, Taxidermy supply shop just outside Parks Slope in Brooklyn. As expected it was full of taxidermy supplies, sprinkled with books and other McSweeney fare (I will write more about this if anyone shows interest).

This is what happened and was the inspiration for the piece:

‘The sign on the drawer said, Please do not open’. It was a small drawer among many. The label which said ‘please do not open’ was a card encased by black painted metal. It doubled as a handle. ‘Please do not open’ was a simple message. Friendly and to the point. A polite request, nothing more and definitely nothing less. But still an urge to open it. A universal urge? An urge is an urge, collective or not. After studying the piece of card with that message, the urge seemed more intense. ‘Just a peak’, one thinks to oneself, surveying the environment. Person on the left, busy, ensconced in a task. No one to the right. Hand on handle. A quick and sneaky tug.

And with it 196 tiny metal balls released simultaneously onto the wooden floor, bouncing in all directions. Hands and knees scrambling to stop the cascading spheres, bouncing and jumping in all directions. Too many, too noisy. Fingers too big for tiny copper balls. A collection takes place. Finally quiet. Smiling knowing nods all round.’

Initial idea on beer coaster

Here’s the finished results it’s called The hunter gets captured by the game. Based on a Grace Jones cover of a Marvette song, as written by Smokey Robinson no less.

Finish results

And the song is here.

Conceptual Provocation within the environment of the Melbourne Art Fair and its focus on exchange, Campbelltown Arts Centre transforms the Project Room with site-specific installations and performances. The project aims at creating an economy of giving and receiving between the artists and the Art Fair visitors.

A1 posters by: Agatha Gothe-Snape, Tom Polo, Brown Council

Great to speak with you Even Books.
(Even books combines books, booze & brains for special one-off parties)

http://evenbooks.tumblr.com/post/877826403/books-sex-basically-sex

Raymond Carver with ciggie from New Yorker Magazine, Photograph by Bob Adelman

Designers often talk about the importance of ’style’ and ‘concepts’  but rarely do they speak of the merits of editing. We forget that a conscientious ‘nip and tuck’ of work can make all the difference to good and bad design, or in fact, anything. When I work with design, editing is probably one of the most important things, I’m not just talking of editing words per se, but the way the design hangs together, so it can be read and measured by the audiences. Cutting to the chase, less is more and all that.

I was recently thinking about this after reading pretty much every single thing Raymond Carver has ever written. You could call me Carver obsessed. His short stories are a true mark of genius, anyone that can write about domestic violence in three pages and send shivers down your spine (with what is left out) is truly gifted. His twisted tales of suburban America, need no more than a few pages to stay with you for a lifetime. When I love someone as much as Raymond Carver, who I stumbled on by chance I might add, I became obsessed about his life. His was an edited version—dead by age 50—his life too, epitomising a short story.

Delving into his life, I discovered he was late to writing—which gives us all hope and a drunk (which doesn’t). His most prolific period—ten years to his final death—were sober and with his second wife Tess Gallagher. Now that’s interesting, but where it gets really interesting is when you delve into the editing of his works, more to the point, what his editor Gordon Lish did to his work. So one night in a mad frenzy of finding out more about Carver, I stumbled on this amazing article in New Yorker Magazine.

It’s an article about one of Carver’s most famous pieces in his classic collection, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, the story Beginners. According to Wikipedia, ‘where his earlier tutor John Gardner had advised Carver to use fifteen words instead of twenty-five, Lish instructed Carver to use five in place of fifteen. When editing Carver’s work he apparently would change and remove at least 70% of the content. Have a look for yourself. And you tell me which you prefer?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/12/24/071224on_onlineonly_carver#ixzz0thK1GoSs

Short stories writers have always been given the rough end of the pencil. When I was at university it’s equivalent in art terms to doing printmaking as opposed to painting. It just wasn’t taken seriously. People always argued  that printmaking wasn’t a really art (remember you can produce multiples and a painting is a one-off for example), and it just isn’t bought and sold as ’serious’ art. (This argument is seen in contemporary thinking about design and art , but that’s another story, check out http://www.amazon.com/Language-Things-Understanding-Desirable-Objects/dp/0393070816 for more on that.)

People often complain of the short story as not long enough to be satisfying, or just as you start getting into it, it finishes. But I don’t agree. The short story is a good example of good editing. Pithy, intense nuggets. So I insist you read Raymond Carver, A.H Holmes and even dip into some Annie Proulx. In a time where 140 words in Twitter can seem trivial, why would people are whinge about short stories?

Bring it on, I say, more editing and more short stories.

Cloth is a small independent fabric company based in Sydney. Cloth make furnishing fabric the old fashioned way, screen printed by hand on a long table in a tin shed in the country.

www.clothfabric.com

Hot off the boccalatte press…

In the style of an old-school penguin classic, Sydney Design’s Storytelling book transcends the regular festival program.

Find Storytelling in all good bookshops from Monday or visit the Powerhouse Museum this weekend if you can’t wait.

People only tend to remember the B52s and that hit in the 80s ‘Love Shack’ but let me tell you that’s not how I remember them…

They came from Athens, Georgia USA and were destined for big things. I am always grateful for Angela Catterns from 2JJ playing Rock Lobster in 1979. They were more to me than a mere crustacean. They played songs about Private Idahos, Wigs, Wild Planets, Lovelands and Danced this mess around. They had Party out of  bounds and they wrote songs to dogs called Quiche Lorraine. Their sense of humour and rawness have influenced so many bands from Le Tigre to King Khan (I’m sure of it).

And they always make me smile.

Watch Cindy’s mike drop at 1:03 in

Don't DIS my ABILITY campaigns 2004-7

The Don’t DIS my ABILITY campaign questions stereotypes and asks people to ‘re-think’ prejudices they might have on disability issues. It also highlights the sense of pride and empowerment among people with a disability.

“The International Lace Award seeks to encourage contemporary design and challenge conventional notions of lace and its application in the areas of fashion, the built environment and digital multimedia.”
Boccalatte worked with Rosemary Shepard to produce the final identity for the exhibition which is a laced piece made from fine copper wire.

JAZZ – “For Science Teachers and the mentally ill”

Let me explain, ‘tootin’ is the sound of trumpet or sax that might get a tad freewheeling or improv in a song. While we don’t all love every-single-bit-of-jazz ever produced, we do think it’s a acquired taste. Now to stop Miles rolling in his proverbial grave, I am thinking of playing at least one jazz album a day, to build the Studio jazz stamina. Mind you, scatting, fusion and Kenny G are formally forbidden. So is tapping feet, whistling and humming to the XXs.

So my answer to those in descent is Lette Mbulu. But more later.

This year the Sydney Design theme is story telling. So every design has a story, in case you were wondering. Or we believe it should. So as part of a design process, conversations take place between the designer and the audience—connecting ideas, desire and needs.

Sydney Design is self described as a series of events, activities, discussions and lectures—creating a convergence of designers, photographers, stylists, craftspeople, designers, curators and artists.

So we plotted the events from around and about Sydney Design with a starting point from Powerhouse Museum, using a Google map reference, with events branching out and connecting to each other with drawn lines.

These are playing with notions of social relationships, networks and narrative pathways. The overlapping lines and colours representing the depth, movement and connections that storytelling creates.

An anatomy of a network. These connections create virtual spaces. But it could represent the wonderful variety of design whether it be graphics, architecture, industrial or fashion or even origami.

And because we  have a penchant for books, this year we really did encourage something we think is quite unique for a Festival… we designed the pocketbook. With a Penguin classic paperback in mind, we organised a book printer to produce a black & white book. This made sense, after all this year’s theme is storytelling.

Hopefully people will pick up and keep the book and not dispose of it like so much festival ephemera.

Will keep you posted.

weird playground paper thingy

Sydney Design 2010 campaign in the process of being derived from a series of Google Map tiles

Stay tuned: we’ll post-up the full campaign imagery once it goes live.

Despite an award winning album in 2009 The XX have been banned in the studio today by Suzanne and Alex. There is no justice in this decision and I for one will be sneaking their lyrics into everyday conversation without them knowing!

These 20 year old Londoners who have been knob twiddling in their bedrooms for the past few years and who finally hit the big time (albeit on a small scale) last year deserve better than this!

Take a stand and listen to the brilliant XX

We like see design in the same way—a good designer not only needs a sense of place in the world, but a good grasp of the senses—to see things as fresh, be prepared to edit, construct and deconstruct again.

With this in mind, during Sydney Design, we are organising a panel of self-confessed tactility-freaks who will be talking about their love of publishing beautiful printed matter. Hear them talk— then touch, see and smell these old-school books and while you are at it, consume a glass of wine and a tasting plate thanks to Berta.

You’re in for a sensual night.

All publications are lovingly self-published and available for sale too.

2nd August, Monday 7:30pm at Berta $25 (includes tasting plate a glass of wine).

Bookings essential as numbers are limited info@berta.com.au

Forum includes Joseph Allen Shea (Izrock Pressing/Monster Children Gallery), Kernow Craig (Blood & Thunder Publishing Concern / founding member of the Rizzeria), Robert Milne & Sinisa Markovic (Rainoff Publishing) and  Johanna Featherstone (The Red Room co.) and me from Boccalatte.

http://urbanwalkabout.com/sydney/just-opened/

By Example showcases the works of 14 renowned contemporary jewellers who are active in Australia and 28 of their nominated students and former students. The catalogue represented the exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts, ITAMi, Japan. mac-itami.com

‘By Example’ contains English and Japanese translations and silver special inks throughout.

Written & illustrated by Renee Fogorty

Fair Skin Black Fella is a children’s book which explores issues young Indigenous Australians face.

Visit Magabala Books

Trunk books will be a series of small, corporeal, personal, and sensual books. They are intended to be beautiful, coveted objects filled with fascinating content, much like an old trunk in an attic. These collectable volumes will be consumable and engrossing as a whole, yet filled with short pieces so that each book can also be flipped through or dipped into at random. Each will explore a part of the human body through writing, art, and photography. There will be interviews, essays, fiction, photo essays, poems, and art works addressing multifarious dimensions of the theme. The series is aimed at an intelligent, engaged audience interested in both “high” and popular culture and is intended to have wide appeal.

Buy TRUNK VOLUME ONE: HAIR and get more info about TRUNK BOOKS at trunkbook.com

We won a merit in the 2010 How International Design Award  HOW Magazine.

Trunk: Volume One has recently been featured in Creative magazine and Best International Design Awards 2010 Communication Arts.

Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) came to us to produce a series of books for its industry workers. It was important they were discrete, small and legible. Small enough to, slip in a handbag or back pocket.

As part of the 2010 Sydney Design campaign, Boccalatte design and developed a bespoke Wordpress theme for the Powerhouse Museum.

We used a strong grid-layout over the sweeping curves of the campaign imagery to create movement and dynamism mimicking the diversity of the 2010 program.

sydneydesign.com.au

Today, Graphis announced their Design Annual 2011 Winners and we’re very proud to be among them.

Boccalatte received a Gold Award for the Edge of Elsewhere exhibition catalogue.

Graphis 2011 Winners List.

So how do you to encourage an audience of 13 to 25 to come to a backstage look at the goings on behind Australian Fashion Week? Two images were decided upon. One very “Sex in the City” the other Kate Moss meets Little Bo Peep. Images courtesy of Getty.

Boccalatte also developed a Blogger theme and e-news template as part of the online marketing suite.

sff.org.au

Hand drawn (sifr) fonts for headings, hand drawn elements throughout and organic navigation offers Performance Space a website with a unique and personal appearance.

performancespace.com.au

The 2010 Sydney Film Festival is Unleashed on the Sydney public at the beautiful State Theatre.

The Boccalatte team attend and manage to get through the front door despite everything.

The EXACT moment when Alex realises that all of our tickets are still in the long-departed taxi.

'Derek was a stuntman on Wallace & Gromit. He received two minor injuries while filming.'

'Phoebe saw Colin Firth on the street once and now assumes they're dating.'

'Polly likes delicate pink floral arrangements, pink shoes and Japanese horrorcore.'

'Mini can pronounce auteur in seven different languages.'

'Marcus has an opinion on every director, performance, cinematographer, score, and film ever screened.'

The hounds help illustrate program content—the core of the campaign—the pathways, making the Festival more accessible.

This meant the campaign had a more non-confronting and humourous tone — as it’s easier to explore our human quirks and neuroses through dogs.

Boccalatte also collaborated with Photoplay, providing art direction for the 2010 television commercial.

Boccalatte won the campaign to brand the 2009 festival using the playful message, ‘Don’t Try This at Home’. The 2009 Sydney Film Festival generated an attendance of almost 120,000 ticket-buyers. The campaign was hugely successful and 2009 marked the most successful year in the Festival’s history with attendances increasing by 43% and daily sales figures by 40.0% on 2008. Boccalatte has been re-engaged for the 2010 campaign.

Mapping Sydney explores the tension between cartographic conventions of precise and universal accuracy, and recent experimental approaches to subjectivity, interpretation, affect, and ‘art’ in maps. Eight collaborators were invited to make their own—experiential or experimental, alternative or idiosyncratic—map of Sydney. Taking up the subjectivity of tourist maps, but moving beyond this to a counter or quasi-tourist visual culture, the project re-visions, re-presents, and maps a few of the many other possible versions of Sydney.

We won the 2010 How International Design Award for most outstanding achievement HOW Magazine.

A series of poster/invites designed for various exhibition openings, using bespoke type inspired by the artist’s work.

visit bundanon.com.au

This website highly commended, Museums Australia Award 2009. Judges Comments: “all the fundamentals of this site are excellent makes one want to visit the place.”

We have been working closely with Deborah Ely and her team at Bundanon Trust for the last few years. A wonderful magical place for artists, writers and other creatives.

Our work won an Museums Australia Awards 2009 their visual identity, website and program brochures. We are busy working on their external signage as we speak.

Museums Australia Awards 2009

Bundanon Trust Corporate Identity Suite
Bundanon Trust Website
Bundanon Trust Program Brochures

Works investigating notions of identity, tradition and globalisation by contemporary artists with varying connections to China. Zhongjian: Midway exhibition catalogue was commissioned by Wollongong City Gallery and curated by Jin Sha.
Artists: Julie Bartholomew, Lionel Bawden, Kate Beynon, Guan Wei,Guo Jian, Jin Sha, Liu Qinghe, Liu Xiao Xian, Lü Peng, Shen Shaomin, Sally Smart, Laurens Tan, Yang Xifa, Zhang Qing.

The exhibition has toured Beijing, Tianjin, Xiamen and Shanghai and is touring Australia 2010-11.

Do people’s faces tell a story of their lives? Is 60 the new 40? What does it mean to age in a time where no one really wants too?

Platinum was an exhibition and catalogue curated by Suzanne Boccalatte for Department of Ageing Disability and Home Care, in celebration of 50 years of Seniors Week. We commissioned artist Petrina Hicks and published her photos in a hard cover, limited edition publication containing 16 photographs, with a preface by Dr Meredith Jones commenting on prevailing notions of youth and old age.

The invite and the limited edition book was featured in 2008 AGDA Awards.

‘The truth is I rarely have sex on tour’. Madonna

From deep in vogue, this year we were the campaign creative directors of the ReelDance Festival. What is ReelDance? It’s a collision between art, film and dance.

Full of imagery including Madonna, Pepper LaBeija from Paris Is Burning and the darling of the Whitney Biennial, Eve Sussman, we figured that the campaign need to be sexy, provocative and beautiful. The booklet has a cover that is also a folder and a poster. Removing the cover reveals the imagery.

Seymour Centre is one of those great 1970s icons of Australian architecture. Designed by Allan Jack and Cottier in 1975, it launched the early careers of Barry Otto, Judy Davis and Garry McDonald.

A Sydney University icon we were asked by Artistic Director Tim Jones to rebrand and relaunch the identity for 2010 Season.

Named in the top ten art publications internationally by the international journal Art Asia Pacific who publishes an Almanac of the best contemporary art across the globe. News From Islands was the only Australian publication acknowledged.