"I like to soak in now-ness"

This week, I interviewed Nathan Yong for Incubate magazine.

Nathan Yong is an industrial designer based in Singapore, who creates furniture and objects that are deceptively simple and beautifully engineered. He is taking the international design world by storm, yet remains endearingly humble.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from our interview:

"I see poetry in the everyday: an ice cream dropping on the ground, a sad child, a rusty tool, a broken chair... everything seems to be in slow motion and beautiful for me... I know it is a cliche but it's true for me, I like to soak in now-ness."

"To me beauty is skin deep, we need more depth to appreciate how things work, and from these understandings we can appreciate the things around us, it is my way of respecting life.

"Design is sexy but without any purpose or reason, it can be dumb at times. Engineering is clever and that to me is sexy."

"My constant goal is to always be a better designer and a person, I believe the rest are transient and don't really matter."

www.nathanyongdesign.com

Svbscription is Christmas wrapped in a box (but it's for men, sorry ladies)

I'd never heard of subscription services 'til now, but I love the concept.

What could be better than receiving a box full of designer trinkets every few months, curated by someone cooler than you? By the time your box arrives, you'll have forgotten that you paid an obscene amount of money to subscribe.

I was curious to see that Portable’s Creative Director, Andrew Apostola, is one of four 'modern gentleman' behind Svbscription.

I interviewed Andrew back in 2011, along with his business partner Simon Goodrich, when they explained their vision for Portable - a technology company with an eye for fashion and art, based in Melbourne and New York.

I'm a fan of the idea and a fan of Portable, so if you're a discerning man with an eye for beautiful things, check out the site

Buro North interview

Melbourne studio Büro North designs everything from logos to signage and wayfinding systems...



My interview with Finn Butler, co-director of Büro North, is now up on CreativeInnovation

I found Finn to be an unusually thoughtful designer when it comes to articulating the thinking behind the studio's work. I learned that designing signage systems is far more complicated than designing signs -- it's about designing human behaviour. It's also fascinating that he worked on the way finding system at Terminal 5 at Heathrow, which must have been a logistical nightmare, before moving to Melbourne and eventually joining Soren Luckins as a partner at Buro North.

Interviews with 'The Kuchelmeister' & Australian artist Bonita Ely

Issue 6 of Incubate magazine features two of my interviews -- the first with Volker Kuchelmeister, head of the Media Laboratory at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Media Research in Sydney, and the second with the wonderfully kooky Australian artist/sculptor/performance artist Bonita Ely. Kuchelmeister & Ely are both lecturers at COFA.

I particularly enjoyed meeting Bonita Ely, a passionate environmentalist with a wry sense of humour.

When Ely received a half-woman, half-chicken toy as a gift from friends, she was so delighted by the toy's garish appearance she named it 'Chook Woman'. Chook Woman features prominently in a series of photographs exhibited by Ely in August 2010 at Campbelltown Arts Centre.

"She's got tits that stick out and a little bow in her hair and very long legs. She doesn't see the pollution, and she thinks the mining is wonderful," says Ely, eyes twinkling with bemusement.

Ely believes art is about making things, not starving in garrets and waiting to be accepted into an elitist art establishment -- a sentiment that I love.

I also spoke with Volker Kuchelmeister about the art of 3D storytelling, which students at COFA can now learn thanks to a new course at the COFA School of Media Arts.

Kuchelmeister explained how stereographic technology has advanced since the 1950s..."Until recently, 3D was really just a tool to sell more expensive movie tickets. But today it is used more cleverly as a creative storytelling tool as it offers an added dimension," he says.

Icebreaker interview: has Caroline Hamilton devised a new way of funding albums?

In London, an investment fund called Icebreaker has devised a new model for funding the creation of music.

Created by entrepreneur Caroline Hamilton, the model brings investors together with artists and bands in the same way the feature film industry relies on financing from private investors. Will it work?

Caroline politely ignored her jet lag on a recent trip to Brisbane to explain how the Icebreaker model works. Our conversation is published here

Adapptor & Perth's creative sector

I've been keeping an eye on the creative industries in Perth, WA for awhile now. As one of the most isolated cities in the world, Perth has long been considered a creative backwater, more famous for the stuff it digs out of the ground than for its creativity.

But a growing group of creative companies are making Perth's creativity known on a global stage. To name a few: Block (advertising & branding), CODA (architecture), f22 photography, Zekka & Testtube (fashion & design) ... they are all worth checking out.

I recently interviewed Marc Loveridge, founder of Adapptor, and have added him to my list of WA's most interesting creative players.

Marc believes the mobile internet is changing the definition of what it means to be ‘creative’. He says the biggest challenge of running a creative business is Perth is its transient workforce. He was a candid interviewee, and further proof that WA's creative sector is coming of age...

Read the interview here

something splendid, melbourne

James Yencken and Jonathon Bellew were studying a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) at Monash University when they decided to launch their own design studio, Something Splendid. Their earliest clients were their friends, whose design briefs became their final year projects.

Something Splendid differentiates itself by fusing hand-made craftsmanship with digital animation.

I recently caught up with Something Splendid to uncover their secrets to launching a successful start-up design practice, and I thought they were splendidly clever in articulating their vision... The article appears here

Claire Inc, Adelaide

Often when I interview interesting retailers and designers I accidentally buy their products.

Claire Inc is a good example... Belinda Humphris founded online vintage store Claire Inc in 2009, and it already has a global following thanks to a smart web marketing strategy.

Humphris first began selling second-hand clothes on eBay to fund her university studies, never imagining her hobby would later become a fully-fledged business.

Buoyed by the success of her eBay store, she decided to invest in a standalone online store, ClaireInc.com, a couple of years later.

By setting up an online store to sell vintage fashion from the 1980s and ’90s, Claire Inc now generates 50% of its sales overseas while 80% of its Australian customers are based in Sydney and Melbourne.

Without an online store, Claire Inc might never have caught the eye of influential fashion bloggers like Style Bubble in London, or attracted celebrity buyers like British singers Lily Allen and M.I.A.

Read my interview with Humphris here... While researching the story, I purchased a very excellent 1980s pencil skirt for the bargain price of $110 dollars.

Right Angle Studio: tips on being a 'Betapreneur'

I have always been impressed by Right Angle Studio and its founder, Barrie Barton, who is one of the cleverest young digital publishers in Australia.

I recently interviewed Barrie for CreativeInnovation, and you can read the story here

I've known Barrie for years and am always surprised at what he turns his hand to next... this year, it was launching a venue, The Pond in Sydney to promote Pure Blonde, and a hotel room to promote Victoria, called The Lost and Found Hotel. All this without losing Right Angle's focus on publishing (Right Angle publishes 'The Thousands' online city guides including twothousand.com.au and threethousand.com.au).

Right Angle's founders (and brothers), are the lovely, enviably intelligent and imaginative Chris and Barrie Barton. They belong to a new generation of entrepreneurs dubbed ‘Betapreneurs’ by UK trend-forecasters LS:N Global.

Betapreneurs rely on online communities to beta test ideas quickly and cost-effectively. If audiences respond well, those ideas are expanded. If not, they can be collapsed quickly, minimising losses. It's a far more efficient way of testing new market opportunities, and is made possible by digital technology.

Steve Henry, HHCL

Last week I met Steve Henry, who was in Tokyo as Grand Jury President of this year's ADFEST Lotus Awards. I asked him about his vision for HHCL, which was one of the world's most awarded agencies in the '90s, famous for producing offbeat campaigns for brands like Pot Noodle.

Steve says HHCL had an almost perverse desire to break all the rules, "but hopefully with enough intelligence to make sure we were breaking the right rules." It worked for more than 15 years, until the agency sold to WPP and ultimately closed.

Steve was impeccably British and charming all week (although surely someone who has such a perversion for rule-breaking must have a darker side lurking beneath the surface!)

My interview is published here.

A conversation with Alex Ritchie, industrial designer at e-2, Sydney

I first stumbled across e2 when I heard they designed a Pop Up pub for ad agency Droga5 as part of a summer promotion for Australia's most popular tipple, VB. They also designed the $10 million 'Centre of Service Excellence' for Qantas - an interesting experiment in simulating workspaces to train and inspire staff.

e2's Creative Director is Alex Ritchie, an architect-turned-industrial designer who also happens to be one of the designers behind the Millennium Dome in London. He's exactly as a creative should be - disheveled, passionate, silly, innately talented.

He co-founded e2 in Sydney a couple of years ago with another Scotsman, Robbie Robertson, which is one of first consultancies in Australia to specialize in the burgeoning field of experiential design. They told me their biggest challenge is explaining what 'experiential design' means to potential clients. It's one of those waffly, new-age marketing terms that is misunderstood and ambiguous, yet I think they're onto something as e2 was singled out in BRW's 2010 list of Fast Starter companies.

Alex is an architect/Creative Director and Robbie is the one who's good with business plans and spreadsheets. I interviewed them about e2's business evolution, and the story appears here on CreativeInnovation. It's long but (I hope) worth reading if you're a small business owner in the branding/experiential space.

Monocle (almost) agree to feature Kevin Finn, Finn Creative

I was hugely disappointed when Monocle decided not to publish this piece on graphic designer Kevin Finn.

Kevin quit his role as Creative Director at Saatchi Design in Sydney a few years ago to set up his own studio in Kununurra, Western Australia, which is not the most obvious place to set up a design studio. For two years, this red-headed Irish Australian lived in such sweltering, isolated and unusual conditions, working with an eclectic mix of clients, that Monocle singled him out as one of 5 designers to watch globally (but later decided not to run the piece after all). Here's how the story began:

“In the East Kimberley, Western Australia, Irish-born designer Kevin Finn established his design studio in perhaps one of the world’s most isolated towns, Kununurra, where the temperature can reach 40 degrees in the wet season.

With extremely limited access to photographers and materials, Finn Creative is in the unique position of bringing high-caliber design to indigenous organisations, rejecting clichéd imagery of boomerangs and dot paintings for more thoughtful, relevant symbolism…”

Although Monocle decided not to run this profile after all, I did write a long piece on Kevin for CREATIVE instead.

Finn relocated his studio, Finn Creative, to Brisbane this year. He also publishes an excellent design journal that explores design's relevance to everything from politics to popular culture, Open Manifesto.

Gemma O'Brien: being Mrs Eaves

I recently interviewed Gemma O’Brief for incubate magazine. I was not nearly as impressed by her body typography – which has made her almost-famous in the design blogosphere – as I was by her illustrations, which are cursive, ornate, and inspired by words, just like her blog (fortheloveoftype, which she writes under the pseudonym 'Mrs Eaves').

Ordinarily, I am suspicious of people who have the potential to become more successful than me by the age of 30. But Gemma is too lovely to begrudge. Bubbly and gorgeous, I love the way she experiments with typography in such a tactile, naïve way. I also love that she's established a global client base for her illustrations thanks to her knack for social networking.

She was recently commissioned to illustrate a story for The New York Times. She designed Bob Hawke’s 80th birthday invitations. She’ll appear at TypoBerlin for the second time as a guest speaker in 2011. And goddammit, she’s only 22.

Peter Saville, Factory Records, Manchester

One of my favorite interviews nearly cost me $600. I phoned Peter Saville in London – the graphic designer behind some of Factory Record’s most famous album covers – from a hotel room in Melbourne.

As it turns out, Peter Saville is incredibly talkative. He must have been interviewed by a thousand journalists over the years, all repeating the same questions, and yet he pondered each of mine like they were the most provocative questions he’d ever heard. We spoke for hours, and I forgot I was paying exorbitant rates for the call (until the hotel gave me my $600 phone bill the next morning, and I nearly fainted).

Mostly, we discussed Saville’s recent role as Creative Director for the city of Manchester and his plans to create a design destination on par with Bilbao and Barcelona. I love the fact that Manchester city had the foresight to hire a graphic designer to play a major role in revitalizing the city. We also spoke about Australian designer Matthew Robertson’s book, Factory Records: the complete graphic album. I think he’s brilliant.

About this blog...

Over the past few years, I’ve interviewed some of the most successful creative professionals in Australia and globally – first as Editor of CREATIVE magazine, and now as a freelance journalist.

Many creative professionals are far less interesting in person than you expect them to be, but the most innately gifted creatives can make the most delightful interviewees.

This blog is dedicated to them.