Web
Smart Transport - Site
The Smart Transport network emerged within the 2011 New Zealand election, to offer an insightful comparative overview on transport options for kiwi voters - 70% of whom weren't rapt with the idea of a refried utopia of 50's era private car dominance.
Basic branding, illustration, and an online presence with handy interactive infographics all came together inside of a week, as a well-oiled studio team showed some smart moves of its own.
With the backing of organisations like the WWF and Greanpeace, Smart Transport is looking to drive home the story of sustainable transport choices on a national and personal scale.
Canadian design firm Rayola had to deliver a Drupal based site as part of an overall brand and communications upgrade for ICA – a non-profit agency committed to integrating, supporting, and celebrating new migrants. In fact two sites: ICA had a parallel web presence for its popular annual Luminara festival which it needed integrating. Together with Rayola’s Clint Hutzulak, (handing ID and print design) we designed a site with distinct tonal personalities in each section. Beneath the hood, the ICA build marked the point at which we began to systematize our CMS approach, developing our custom Lightwork base theme, and essentially a meta foundation that we still use today.
One World – Brand and Online Store
A new niche German e-tailer was less than impressed with state of ecommerce design at home, and decided to look further afield – starting with visual identity. We took our cues from client’s world music associations, and target market proclivities, but wanted to integrate a little urban euro grit. The simple letterforms of the word ONE took care of the former, but type was to be the vehicle for the latter. To see that through properly, we went as far as a roll your own typeface, borrowing a little from a long time gave grunge version of the classic Eurostile font – but little less hairy, and importantly simplified enough to work as an @fontface webfont.
Bluejay - Workshop Events Site
A mutual world music related connection via a NZ expat lead to an interesting German based web design project, spanning a rich diversity of indigenous cultures: The legacy site was one of those so hard to navigate, so un-designed, that at first we missed 75% of the site content we had to migrate – which is a remarkably common hazard, in the site migration business. BlueJay organizes workshops and meetings with renowned shamans from around the world, mainly in Munich and Rosenheim, and now their events can be found.
Ngati Whatua o Kaiparamoana - Site & CRM
It’s easy to be glib about the land settlement process, but getting a grip on the scale of historic losses usually puts things into a healthy context. A little north of Tamaki Makaurau, the South Kaipara hapu of Ngati Whatua has endured a long struggle for redress of a small portion of the loss of their ancestral land.
It’s been vital to ensure that both the local community and an extended diaspora were kept up to date and involved in serious decisions about their future stake-holding.
Kaiparamoana.com was our first fully hands-on Drupal CMS based project. CiviCRM was subsequently integrated to enable Kaiparamoana staff to manage communications, particularly with newly ‘of age’ eligible stakeholders. It’s been a delight to be able to follow up and extend this system over the following years – and see the community step by step realize its aspirations in its dealings with the crown.
Now Future - Site, ID, CRM
A call to develop an online presence and for arts-led projects addressing sustainability and ecology hit all the right spots for us. Even more so when Now Future was to break out with its Dialogues With Tomorrow program – essentially a series of encounters between cultural leaders and scientists, reflecting on the increasingly pressing environmental questions of the day.
After a number of design iterations, we came back to the original identity concept, which we’d set aside because maybe it was too simple, too easy. Of course simplicity as a design virtue isn’t lost on us, but it’s temping to want to complexify things. It’s nice when you’re right first time, it would be nicer still if you happen to realize it at the time! The site is one of our early Drupal builds, integrated with the powerful CiviCRM system for communications and audience management.
NSCSS - CRM, Site
Often CRM – Customer (or Constituent) Relationship Management systems are an addition to a project – and the Drupal CMS offers a relatively seamless integration with CRM functionality. This Auckland community agency, however, came with specific requirement for a CiviCRM system – and they already had a site, with a capable, but less sophisticated CMS. And five different databases they needed to integrate. No strangers to CiviCRM, we were able to integrate NSCSS’s databases into civiCRM, and upgrade the site to Drupal CMS, with a bonus usability-focused design refresh.
John Psathas - Artist Portal
In classical music terms, John Psathas is a Peter Jackson: an artist with a major international career, but who has chosen to continue working out of a low-key environment in Wellington. He may be best known for (along with Bjork) writing the ceremonial music for the 2004 Athens Olympics, heard by around 2 Billion people.
Capable of immense complexity, he has chosen to use his gift in a way that engages with a relatively broad audience, building on familiar touchstones of rhythm and tonality in fresh, invigorating new ways, and unlike many contemporary composers, speaking to the heart as much as the head. “Rather than build a standalone site, John sought a simple portal to the various existing avenues emerging to access his music: live, recorded, and as scores. His monumental contemporary concerto album View From Olympus, had just come out, which had an identity of it’s own, but one that he wanted to both reference and compliment. Yes that’s a thing we can do. So we did.
Singing Frog Music - ID, Site
OK, so the metaphor behind this label’s name might not be immediately obvious to the uninitiated: A singing frog is symbolic of the healing waters of the new rains called down by the frog’s song to end drought, implying enjoyment and abundance. But in identity terms we saw little fundamentally broken needed fixing.
But we set the logo type in a direction more evocative of the ‘world travelling’ sensibility associated with the music, and re-rendered the frog him/herself.
The site is testimony to Drupal’s suitability to sites both small and large – in this case the former was realized lickity spit, and still easy for the publisher to maintain.
Few could watch Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth unaffected –even if the truth wouldfrequently actually turn out to be quite convenient – the benefits to health, happiness, and bank account that a more sustainable lifestyle will bring, and all.
But many were moved to more than personal changes, and in 2008 a bunch of TGD focus shifted to anything that could be done to raise the level of environmental thinking in our national discourse – specifically the election campaign. In truth, this turned out to be a less than well-oiled campaign machine I was plugging into.
But, somehow, between some eloquent and principled candidates, a bunch of dedicated volunteers, some heartstring-pulling posters by Special Group, and contributions by ourselves – such as this campaign site front-page, the Greens increased their representation in parliament. And show every sign of doing so again.
