Back in 1996, I developed a handful of typefaces. I’m sure back then I thought they weren’t too bad, however I don’t think much of them these days. However, some people are font whores, and will scrounge for every typeface available.

The grunged out ‘m6′

Anyhow, I’ve added the typefaces section back to the website and they are all available for download again.

Cast yourself back to the online design network in 1998 and you may remember the Praystation. Praystation displayed imagery taken from computer games - past and present, and remixed them to create compositions that illustrated “a new hybrid aesthetic”. In any event, it was one of my favourite sites of the time.

Like the gardener who has the shabbiest looking garden in the street as he’s had no time to tend it, he now returns with his new site.

Well… somewhat. You’ll notice that the site’s been tweaked around again and I’ve knocked down a few walls, some new carpet and a paint job. A new job, a holiday, a new website, there’ll all things that go hand in hand.

Further, on the new job - it’s something I have neglected to mention so far! I’m shifting my gaze from the world of telecommunications and moving back to financial services with a role at Russell. Never heard of them you say, well neither had I when I was contacted about the role. Anyhow, Russell are a global investment services firm and I’ll be heading up their E-Marketing team.

My last day with AAPT is on April 28th, and a with a little more time relaxing, I will start the new gig.

…and no, they have nothing to do with Russell Atheletic - as has been asked a few times already!

…oh, feel free to let me know what you think of the new design for Royaltech, or if there’s anything I’ve inadvertantly missed.

In the tradition of celebrating birthdays, holidays, and other events, Google celebrates the birthday of Louis Braille today. Certainly goes close to being the best Google logo change so far - another favourite being that of the Mondrian Google for his birthday. Check out some of the previous Google holiday logos, and find out a little more about the artist, Dennis Hwang.

Here’s a Christmas greeting card we’ve put together. Check it out and send it on. Actually, it’s more than just a Christmas card, you can win one of 5 $1000 prizes.

Anyhow, here’s Santa rocking out with his reindeer out. Recognise that DJ?

Now in its ninth year, Sculpture by the Sea - Bondi 2005 is Australia’s largest annual outdoor free to the public exhibition of contemporary sculpture. Staged along Sydney’s spectacular Bondi to Bronte coastal walk, the exhibition attracts over 400,000 visitors and exhibits over 100 works by artists from Australia and overseas.

Sunday was a glorious day - to avoid traffic, we jumped on a bus down to Bronte to do the walk and peruse the sculptures. Here’s some photos I took from the day.

Here’s a small plug for Chair - a retailer come restaurant focussing on the more original and quirkier end of interior decoration (and not to mention food - organic wine list anyone?.

Check out the site, or if you’re in Notting Hill, drop in and say to my cousin Amelia.

He steps left, he steps right. Looks like he’s going straight up the guts!

Straight Up The Guts is a simple flash game we built, targetting Kiwi expats now living in Australia. It’s Bledisloe Cup time, and rugby fans here and across the Tasman are only thinking about one thing - victory! Oh, and the bragging rights to their mates-cum-enemies.

Computers were so much simpler back in 1983. I had my Commodore 64 and I don’t know how many joysticks I broke doing the 100m dash in Summer Games, let alone the hours of somersaulting and robot jumping in Impossible Mission, refuelling my Formula 1 around Sebring in Pitstop II, or trying to get out of the hangar in Raid Over Moscow.

Anyway, here’s an ode to those times - Hey Hey 16k.

Two days, twelve presentations. Over 3000 audience members, five fourteenths of them wearing Threadless t-shirts, kinky little squirrels and set on a picturesque backdrop of Darling Harbour - Semi-Permanent 2004.

One of the key speakers I wanted to see was Vince Frost, and it was indeed one of the highlights for me. Some said he was a bit flat, and when you put him up against say Newstoday, his approach will be. Personally, I love his use of typography as graphical elements, not to mention the his discussion of elements of the business.

Put simply, the Newstoday presentation was downright funny as the went about discussing the monolithical Quorporation. Very tongue in cheek, and they did make Frost look quite droll. Then again, most of the speakers would have appeared that way put next to Newstoday. Then’s there’s that little QBN jingle taking the mickey out of NBC - very smooth.

Animated eyecandy is what MK12 were all about. Almost zero talking, they did the ‘talking’ with their work instead. Of interest was the Absolut piece they showed which didn’t win the pitch, but it featured the sounds of Dopplereffekt. I had a chat to them afterwards, and they love dirty and dark electro… puts them right up there in my books!

Phunkstudio, man there were some twisted concepts! Those guys are rockstars, and they love it.

I enjoyed the Black and White (Studio Magazines) presentation, apart from the fact that the art director (well, he was until recently) was extremely nervous and the planning was haphazard. That said, I love the way he gets to work on a commercial publication with such dynamics.

Major props to The Mill - what haven’t they worked on? I didn’t realise it but they worked on the Pirelli campaign featuring Carl Lewis in 1995. Good to see that piece again with Polygon Window’s “Quoth” piercing the airwaves. A couple other high-profile pieces they’ve done that you might have seen include the Honda ‘one take chain reaction’, the Tooheys Extra Dry ‘Tongue’ (they played it with an alternate tune to Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction, and it didn’t work due to the fact that wasn’t a song you’d imagine a group of young 20 somethings dressed in a cross between street and grunge dancing to) and the Playstation 2 TVC where it appears to be a mountain of people all clambering to get to the top.

The one standout point of negativity was the studio manager from SBS. She grated on me right from the start and then it really hit me with her comments about non-designers. Sure, it’s all well and cool to diss those who aren’t designers, and every designer hates the question ‘Can you move it 2 pixels to the left?’, or ‘I don’t like green, can you make it blue?’, but I found her approach juvenile. At the end of the day, who pays your bills luv?

And in a wink, it was over. On to terrorise the design massive in Auckland this Saturday.