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.

Urban Circus: designing cities

"In 2004, urbanist Dr Ben Guy noticed that many urban infrastructure projects are constructed with little foresight into the human experience of how they will ultimately be used.

He wondered if the same technology behind computer games and animated Hollywood films could be employed to design better cities, and established Urban Circus – a company that creates simulation technology specifically for the infrastructure sector.

Urban Circus’ flagship product is ‘UC Engine’ – a platform that enables architects, engineers and decision-makers to virtually walk, fly or drive around designs before they are built. By creating intuitive simulations of bridges, roads, highways and neighbourhoods, clients can improve the quality of their designs and avoid costly construction mistakes..."

To read the full interview with Dr Ben Guy, click here

Design your pet

This black-and-white checked dog was spotted in Bondi ...

Maurice Terzini, Voi Tutti magazine

Restaurateur Maurice Terzini understands the importance of design, from the crisp, airy architecture at Bondi Icebergs, to the Ksubi-designed aprons worn by his staff at North Bondi Italian, and his own distinctive fashion choices.

His attention to detail is impeccable, bordering on obsessive (notice how the waiters at Icebergs Dining Room align the labels on wine bottles to the edges of the table). He can woo Australia's top echelon of business executives without losing touch with Bondi's cool set. He appreciates fashion and has a fondness for wearing tights with oversized shirts. I'm sure Terzini's appreciation of design is key to his success as a restaurateur.

My interview with Maurice appears runs as the cover story in Voi Tutti.

Sydney dust storm, by Derek Henderson

Yesterday Sydney-siders awoke to a city shrouded in red dust, and thought the world had ended.

Photographer Derek Henderson (who is originally from New Zealand but now moves between Sydney & Auckland), captured Bondi's bloody dawn...

Hawaiian tattoo design

In the 1985 film 'Weird Science' two nerdy boys create the perfect woman, who is played by Kelly LeBrock. It's a terrible movie but for the sake of argument, let's imagine what the perfect male might have looked like if the two nerdy boys were replaced by two adolescent girls. I think I know the answer. He would have looked like a Hawaiian surfer.

I just returned from Hawaii where I interviewed Kala Alexander, one of the most notorious founders of the surf tribe, Wolfpak, and spent the week surrounded by young, taut, virile young men. It was awful.

I was struck by their masculine perfection, and by the beauty of Hawaiian tattoos, which are territorial, warrior-like and designed to intimidate. Etched in black ink, the tattoos depict maps of Hawaii, cursive letters or Polynesian symbols, and although my story was all about surf gangs (not tattoo design), I did get a rare glimpse into how tattoo art has become an emblem of Hawaiian identity.

(Left: Kala Alexander, as photographed by Cory Lum in Oahu, Hawaii. My interviews with Kala appeared in Sunday Magazine & Tracks magazine).

Sydney's ethnic clubs

I sampled Lithuanian, Cypriot, and Basque cuisine (and marveled at the un-deliciousness of food from Germany and Uruguay) while researching this story for the (sydney) magazine about ethnic clubs. I also marveled at the fabulously daggy interior design of these clubs.


The decor isn't flash, so I have to credit photographer Steven Chee for taking such colorful pictures.

If you haven’t been to the Cypriot Club, Lithuanian Club or Concordia Club – go there, quick before they go out of business and a little slice of Sydney’s ethnic scene is lost forever. (And if you do make it to the Concordia Club, let me know if they've still got this article framed on their wall. It's my claim to fame).

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.