So, I know we've been super quiet. But we have a new mission. A new project. And a new space.
In the space of less than two weeks we found new offices, renovated, moved EVERYTHING and have set up our first proper official office ever.
And we're launching our NEW stuff soon.
As this was the first personal posters MAKERS has produced, we asked Lingo to document his printing process. These are some of his pics.
We're starting to documnent what we created during our internal project/experiment in a public sphere at our pop-up studio at 70 Juta St.
A personal project / challenge to take a simple ARC shape and through assembly the shape of the chandelier is achieved - there was no design / schematic from which to work from.
The ARC prototype chandelier. We used screws for the assembly - but the final won't have screws.
The introduction of electricity. The size, shape, type etc. is the next thing to solve.
FUCK RED VELVET CAKE
We've tried (& tried) to find the time to finish this for weeks but only got round to it now.
NEVER DELAY JOY
R 850 - unframed
Limited run of 10 posters
STOCK Ivory uncoated 350gsm
PRINTING digital
PAPER SIZE 700 x 1000mm
ARTWORK SIZE A1 - 594 x 841mm
So, on 30 Nov from 6 till midnight Antonia added a copper & dark grey/brown mural to the studio wall...
Check out www.makersvspace.blogspot.com for the full history.
This is a good project to showcase the three sides to M A K E R S and how we work together on a large project from concept to execution to full roll-out.
The logo typeface was hand illustrated, scanned and reconstructed as a unit. This crafting of text was applied to all elements produced for the conference.
THE INVITE FRONT & BACK
This A1 poster was mailed out to all the guests country wide. All printed items were on Naturalis Ivory.
Many perspex colours were cut and used to create the graphic campaign image. A large set was built were hundreds of them were hung. They were photographed (for the printed elements) and filmed (for the stage presentation). This clip was looped and put to music so that there would always be a branded element to the proceedings.
Platted flames were made and hung on the stage - to extend the concept so that the visual devise was carried through.
(SOME) DESIGN ELEMENTS
The gifting for the conference was specifically designed and made. It literally comprised of only two elements - a book and spacepen. These were placed onto the seats in the auditorium.
The slip-slops were for the guests to wear to the bare-foot ball. The luggage tags were produced in the three colous (red,orange,yellow) as the guests were divided between three hotels and to aid managing the people & their luggage this colour co-ordination aided greatly to ease the mass amounts of guests, their belongings, and transporting them between the different venues.
THE CERTIFICATE DESIGNS
These were handmade. The RED is 500mm in length, the YELLOW 430mm. Laser cut black perspex attached to CNCG-ed Finnish Plywood base, individual yellow,orange, red perspex flames & letters inlaid into as well as onto the raised surface forming a relief on to the finished item.
DECOR
Bridge leading to the conference area
Wrapped tree in event colours with added textures of golds etc. The hot & cold food areas were divided by colour - RED hot | YELLOW cold
BAREFOOT BALL DECOR
We made number of custome chandeliers / lighting instalations to divide the 55 metre tent into managable spaces that had their own 'personality' but worked as a whole together as well as enticing the quests to move in and out of the space.Dotted through-out the space were a number of lounge areas mixing decor styles etc but always reflecting the event colour palette.
Vicky Crease did the food - balancing flavours with colour & texture to bring the Heat & Colour of the event to life.
BRUNCH
The following mornings brunch design was dependent on the use of colour & texture through-out the space. Each tables arrangement was unique for it's place settings colour choices & textures and the flower choices & arangements were specifically commissioned to be more random & individual.
DESIGN / CREATIVE DIRECTOR - Antonia
PHOTOGRAPHY / CINEMATOGRAPHY - Olivia
DECOR / SPATIAL DESIGN - Victoria
These are the stensil artwork we had cut by GreenGrass - They worked really well when we actually sprayed the designs onto the cork.
Like all design you begin, get lost & eventually find a solution.
Ooriginally we were playing with putting the faces (or very stylised version of their main characteristic) on to the final wrap that kept the bottles secure for transport plus had the press release printed on the one side however it just defeated the purpose of "guessing who was coming to dinner" so the question marks replaced the faces.
Thankfully someone - Chris Roper - from the Mail & Guardian guessed the dictators from their nicknames. I hope the other recipients were as astute.
What happens when you've literally got 6 manufacturing days to produce something amazing for the launch of the new Nando's ad?
What started out as trying to do the combo custom/purchase-off-the-shelf-items ended up with us going the harder stressful crazy route of making everything from scratch. It has been a tough 6 days - but we did it - all thanks to our amazing network of suppliers and collaborators.
African Rosewood tray / ceramic spice jars / custom cut corks / custom sprayed artwork / amazing spices.
A little bit of illustration & texture & stuff & it's now a poster.
Are coming to these shores...and hopefully Jhb...
During most of 2005 I lived in London, and for a portion of that time Claudia lived in Germany, working to save money to travel for her architecture studies. She was gifted by her employers a christmas present of a stay in Cardona Castle, north of Barcelona.
Between the bus journey through the Stalinist housing projects/slums of Barcelona to the ex-military base to the flight with the air hostess character right out of Little Britain I was thankful for the journal and window seat on the EasyJet flight back.
I did not really use any of the journal musings while working overseas but as time went by sometime after I returned to SA I began delving into my many journals, using some elements for illustration inspiration - but in this case I started designing a 3D font that could change perspective whenever or however you tried to use it.
The difficulty was trying to design something that would look good from four directions as well as working for the more tricky individual letters. I can's say I've solved all the letters to my satisfaction - some are clumsy - but one day I'll get round to fixing them - when there is time.
Once I had it in vector form the 'sidewall' section of the font became superfluous - and I started messing with how to bring depth in to an essentially flat form. For a completely different project I cut / engraved perspex samples trying to discover the boundaries of the material in it's different forms and colours. Portions of this alphabet made up some of these samples. Around about this time (mid-2010) Claudia was looking to brand her pet project.
This P was not my first attempt at the POST logo - but Claudia stumbled across my laser-cut horde (and stole all the P's but one) and that was that. It is not that I was originally against it - I was caught between 4 enormous projects but I also wanted to create something beyond my design knowledge - not falling back on something already old in my eyes.
Which is what the gang from POST wanted. Something timeless. Something that would not look out of place in any era. They also wanted something unconventional and low-key branding.
As you can tell - the original plans have not come to pass - instead, the eatery has grown and fleshed out as needs arose, as it grew, as it's personality formed. It is essentially the sum of it's parts. This is intentional. This is not a cut & paste branding job - ticking off the prerequisite list of branding elements.
This is what makes POST - not as a facsimile of something other - but something unique. So much careful thought & planning & effort from all the people involved at different points of it's existence have added value and flavour - essentially making up the basis of the POST experience.
Between the reclaimed / salvaged elements to the hand crafted counter top (made by our father Kim & sister Olivia) to the choice of food available to where they get their butter from to the skill of Sebelo and his coffee. Everything is a celebration of either it's natural state or most amazing form.
A number of years ago I had the opportunity to design a brand from the foundation up - there was nothing but a NEED to challenge the world of furniture & the industrial designers PASSION to see it through.
From laying down the core values and strategic direction, to what they want their furniture to stand for in the long term to the naming of the brand.
AMOQ: Liberating Furniture
It was not easy and it took months. Then years went by. The designers busied themselves designing amazing furniture systems that made their clients millions, building up a phenomenal portfolio of work to validate their design principles that underpins AMOQ.
Then they decided to open a pop-up-store - to show the result of designing for the worst client ever - themselves - showcasing their revolutionary products - they're waiting on the latest to come off the production line. From the heaps of elements that were created - the designers chose a few to roll-out instore.
AMOQ - designed as a non-brand - there is no specific logo, no specific style, no specific look. Aside from NEON ORANGE. It is designed to interact with the senses - to go beyond the static.
For more stuff on AMOQ check out their website (the new one will be launching soon) http://amoq.co.za/
AMOQ definition & all forms of AMOQ
AMOQ store front - cnr De Beer & Juta, Braamfontein
AMOQ 3D neon 'logo'
AMOQ table legs
AMOQ legs support POST breakfast lunch's cedar tabletop
AMOQ picture rails
AMOQ picture frames
AMOQ business cards
AMOQ invoice/order
AMOQ posters (in order from top)
Liberating furniture
No sacred cows
Caged chaos
Bleeding heart
These are a few projects that we've designed from scratch - and the full roll-out will be put up on the website... when we get time to get to it...
