This logo was used for the duration of the conference and applied to electronic and printed communication.

The SWA is a ‘social business’ which makes profits to achieve a social goal. It also campaigns for progressive water industry practices which benefit the environment. Our approach was to create an identity design of connected circles, or ripples. This is a reference to concepts of water and social business.

We worked with the incredibly talented designer Andy Vella – being big fans of his work for the Cure – on this book. He created some incredible packaging, while we did the interior design, to create a truly special package for the reader.

The signature edition features the book in a square format which is reminiscent of a vinyl record. The cover has a minimal binding design with the name and trademark chevrons embossed in yellow. This design interacts with the  yellow plexiglass slipcase so, once the package is assembled, the nickname ‘Haç’ pops out. Also included is a mounted piece of the actual Hacienda dancefloor, in all its grubby glory.

The deluxe edition houses the book in a hinged maple box – a reference to the dancefloor, which was made of the same material. Inside is the book along with a 10” record of new tracks by Hook recorded exclusively for this version, a mounted piece of the dancefloor and a piece of the bar top.

The ultimate edition contains the same elements as the deluxe edition as well as a bass guitar with the yellow/black chevron motif and made from wood of the dancefloor.

Deluxe Edition cover

The design takes visual cues from the legendary club and Factory Records in a direction which is both new but still feels related to the Factory/Haçienda visual history. Rather than being a stoic reflection on the past, our design uses the Haçienda’s chevron motif in very visual ways: colourful, jagged, remixed, layered and distorted. This is to reflect the energy, ecstasy, humour, disappointments, chaos and triumphs which made up the club’s history.

These new editions contain additional text from Hook, images of rare club flyers, membership cards, newsletters and unique visuals from club architect Ben Kelly. The book was produced for Foruli Editions. Below is Hook commenting on our design:

Hacienda Deluxe Edition

Hacienda Signature Edition

We’ll always be thankful to Duckworth for the opportunity to design these. It was fun to make something that was graphically bold and had a feeling of blood and zombie gore.

Because of that, we wanted their website to have a slightly physical look, with depth between layers, almost like a die-cut. But the design of the site is subdued so that it doesn’t overpower their work.

The site is built on a content management system which makes it easy for the client to update pages themselves.

The most important changes for the client happened in the background: the new site is built on the WordPress web publishing platform. This makes it fast for them to add news, features, events and imagery within a matter of minutes. Multiple staff at the school can easily contribute content to the site.

We’ve built in some HTML5 animation, webfonts and social network linking capability. Promotional banners and shopping links are stylish and fast to change sitewide. Viewer’s can subscribe to an RSS feed or to an Events listing through their own desktop calendar.

 

Detail

We created an illustration of a Fender Telecaster melded with the barrel of an automatic rifle. It was inspired by the mix of stories along with Mueller’s observation from his travels that ‘Young men carry electric guitars and rifles with the same insouciant swagger…’

The author and the publisher loved our design and the only change was to flip around the image of the Telecaster. Apparently we had it backwards, which shows how much we know about rock.

If you like this, and can’t get enough of guns on books, see also, our book covers for World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide.

Rock and Hard Places book cover design spine detail

Our concept stemmed from a visual tradition of printed copies of Networks where the cover image was always some sort of visual network or cluster (pebbles on a beach, interleaved feathers on a wing, etc). In that spirit, we wanted to create a self-contained shape which was composed of interconnected elements.

We designed them to compliment each other and the main Center for Cartoon Studies site.

See the sites: Schulz Library Blog and Visiting Artist Blog.