Full story will be published shortly.

This particular poster design is currently on display over at the Neue Project.
Full story will be published shortly.

Full story will be published shortly.

Full story will be published shortly.

Full story will be published shortly.

Originally, we came up with a handful of concepts that based around the idea on mainly the name of the graffiti crew FDC and graffiti related terms or spray paint’s colour chart. However, we have in the end decided to further develop the most powerful concept that reflects time and perhaps experiences throughout a time period of 10 years.

We will start with explaining some background information here. The name of the graffiti crew — FDC, is the short form of the full term “Fuck Da Cops”. Secondarily, the name also stands for “For Da City”. Driven from this dual meanings fact, the design concept was to incorporate the use of different units of measuring the very 10 years and they can be viewed in the following ways:

10 years = 520 weeks = 3650 days = 87600 hours = 3650 days = 520 weeks = 10 years

Those elements of measuring time link to each other naturally in terms of meanings and they have been designed in a specific way; linking with a selected element back to back but upside down with their shared typographic element - the alphabet “s”. As a result of design development, “10 years” has been matched with “520 weeks” while “87600 hours” has been linked to “3650 days”.

fdc = fuck da cops = for da city = fdc

Further more, the two meanings that stand for FDC, as mentioned previously, have been placed separately into two areas within the graphic composition. Which in this case, the top and the bottom of the design, or vice versa. Simply put, the final design is meant to be read from both sides, the top and the bottom, and at the same time to challenge and question about the relationship between the printed teeshirt and the person who wears it.

As you can see, the design has been pushed further with considerations on how the graphic would interact with not only the teeshirt nor viewers but most importantly, the wearer. When this particular teeshirt being worn by any of the FDC crew members, or any person who are lucky enough to own one, the design presents the message to every viewers about the 10 years anniversary theme and more importantly, the believe embedded within FDC —  ”Fuck Da Cops, For Da City.”

Moreover, the design also became a reminder/reflector to the wearer of the teeshirt. It reminds the crew members, in a self-criticising way, of what they have been believing and living for 10 years. It also reminds those non-crew members why FDC has been existing for 10 years and is still contributing to the scene in many different ways.

After all, We did try to propose an ideal set of two teeshirts but it cannot be processed further due to a limited budget for the project. Nonetheless, we are still very happy with the outcome. Special thanks to everyone from Dirty Panda as well as the FDC Crew for approaching us on this project.

The design is now available through Dirty Panda, printed with silver ink on black teeshirt, made in China.

After receiving much more information, this occasion for VA Select was actually an one-off appearance, aiming to promote their flagship store as well as sharing a selected range of products under a selected brand - in this case, a photography accessories label from Japan. We love the idea of relationships between mother and child, and in this case, a flagship store and an one-off select stall. Basing on this idea, we came up with an twin posters concept.

Two A1 size poster designs have been created which share the same grid, a certain amount of identical graphic elements while one of them were given a typograhic twist. For the first poster (below, on the left) contains background information about the name VA, what they do and why a stall at the festival. On the second poster, we have decided to maintain what we have done and to further experiment with the title and placement of the remaining elements.
Firstly, a paragraph of text on the label were being placed at the same text area as the first poster. After that , we turned the title ‘We Are VA Select’ into ‘We Select PowerShovel’ by introducing the positive/negative space, highlighting the name of the label.

Apart from the typographic design on the posters, we have also placed a strip of short diagonal lines at the bottom of each poster in which those lines were decomposed fragments from the original VA logo. The particular angle of those lines, when being put together, reminded us about those ‘Do Not Cross’, ‘Caution’ plastic strips and signs painted on roads which being used to catch pedestrians’ or drivers’ attention. We though this visual element was matching really well with the name of the event ‘Laneway Festival’ as well as the one-off appearance of the stall.

Shown above is a mockup image of how we see the twin posters concept working together, creating an visual excitement that would catch attention as well as providing the appropriate amount of information.

We would like to thank Nadia Saccardo, a wonderful friend/editor/writer of ours, for helping us on refining the text for these posters.

After understanding how Mr Lau would like to be represented by a printed material, we have based the concept around his multi-industries experience which most of the time lead people to consult with him.

Our first idea was to create a design that shows all the industries which Mr Lau has been through and gained great amount of experience. However, we soon realised that there are too many to be listed on a comparatively small printed surface which became too overwhelming. At this point, allow us to rewind back to a little while ago: before we took on this project, we were reading a book called ZERRO by Yukimasa Matsuda - a book that research into the field of symbols and signs containing the most common ones and those that are barely existing among today’s society.

After that, we have decided to only include his name (in both Chinese and English) and his contact numbers within the design. We were really inspired by the power of symbols and signs and hence we introduced the punctuation symbol - ellipsis (…) to replace what have been taken out. In order to achieve a more personalised visual representation of Mr Lau, we have extended the ellipsis into a set of seven dots. This extension is to create a underlying relation with the Chinese character ‘七’ which means seven in English. (Note: Mr Lau is the seventh child in his family.) We believe that by incorporating the chosen punctuation symbol, it symbolized Mr Lau himself taking on different roles within different contexts; while there are just too many to be mentioned.

A challenging aspect of this project was to deliver a design with bilingual components; in which Chinese and English. In order to execute this appropriately, we have researched into roman typefaces that would best harmonise with the comparatively narrow range of Chinese typefaces. A ’sans serif’ Chinese font and the Rotis Sans Serif designed by Otl Aicher were selected. We admire the idealism behind Aicher’s Rotis typeface design; the approach towards creating a family where serif and sans serif coexist. The idea of harmonious coexistence remains a critical element in this project.

Lastly, you might have noticed that the paper stock that we have used for this project featured a gloss reflective white on one side and an uncoated finishing on the other side. To us, this particular stock can further enhance our conceptual approach towards the design.

Card dimension: 85 x 55mm
Laser printed on Shimmer cote, 300 gsm.

Having given complete creative freedom by the team at VA, we then proposed a bold and playful concept for the design. As according to the re-branding project finalised earlier on, we have incorporated the new guidelines and hence led to the use of Helvetica for this project.

The poster consists of four main design elements. They are the new logo, a heading, paragraphs of text provided by the VA team and a diagonally placed arrow. The first three components are pretty much communicating directly about the news. When it comes to the arrow, we would like to let you know a bit more about it.

The bold and eye catching graphical arrow contains layers of meaning within the design:
1. Some of you might have noticed the relationship between the angle of the diagonal line and the new VA logo. The intension is to address the new graphic identities of the space as well as suggesting the new direction taken by the VA team.
2. If you are familiar with the area where VA is located (Darlinghurst/Surry Hills), you will know how hilly it is. While the text mentioned where the new location will be “up the hill”, the arrow is aiming to visually represent the content of the paragraphs to a certain extent.
3. When reading the poster at the current shop front, the arrow is pointing towards the new site where VA will be located in 2009.
4. Similarly, when looking at a map from an aerial view, the arrow is again pointing from the current location towards the new space of VA.

In other words, it is a site specific poster that we have designed. From the mockup image above, you can see that the (old) shop front, with the poster purposely covering the old logo of the store to announce the news officially to the public.

Digital output in A3 size on heavy gloss stock

For this project, there wasn’t really a brief but rather we were given the freedom to develop a framework by ourselves. Along with our understanding that the card will be used to deliver the happiness across the globe; we then developed the main concept for this project - connecting the cities, from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere and to the rest of the world.

In the end, our design didn’t get to proceed further. However, we think that it would be good to put them up here for those who are interested to see our work. To us, the design will nolonger be valid after this year and we would like to put it in good use. We have decided to publish this design under our name in a small run to keep the concept rolling. Cards will be sent to friends and design studios around the world whose we love & respect. We are hoping to cheer them up in this old fashion way. (note: there were another dozens of designers and studios that we tried to send a card as well but we just wasn’t able to find their addresses at the time; and we still feel bad. 10.30.2009)

If you happen to be reading about our work(s) and would like to receive one of these festive fellas, just get in touch with us. We do have a small amount of them sitting around our studio.

Offset-printed on front & back
DL size (99×210mm)
Uncoated, 300gsm, 100% recycled stock

We would like to thank Ms Liz Williamson for inviting us to work on this project at the very beginning. We were deeply delighted although the project didn’t go as smooth towards the end.