The Melbourne Design Market is a one of its kind event that continues to be the place to be and be seen. For stallholders it provides the opportunity to get your new products and ideas out to over 10,000 stylehunters in just one day. Since 2005 the Melbourne Design Market has been popping up twice a year and transforming the Federation Square Car Park into a design show presenting some of this country’s greatest creative enterprises.

For shoppers the Melbourne Design Market is the place to see a fantastic array of merchandise, acquire the latest must-have pieces and enjoy the party-like atmosphere. For successful stallholders it’s a day of sales, orders, and most of all, meeting new clients and receiving valuable feedback on your business.

Do you have a new product or idea that you want to get to the people who’ll appreciate it? Then go to www.melbournedesignmarket.com.au now to look through the FAQs and make your application.

Distinguishing the Melbourne Design Market from all others is a rigorous selection procedure for prospective stallholders to ensure the quality and diversity of the products on offer. Given that it’s such a successful forum to launch new products, the market receives many more applications than can possibly be accepted.

APPLICATIONS CLOSE 5PM FRIDAY October 15, 2010

More information here

AWARD, Australia’s pre-eminent creative industries body, has announced changes to its 2011 awards programme. AWARD, the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association, counts some of the finest creative minds from Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia amongst its members. It is a non-political, non-profit organisation that aims to set standards of creative excellence, to promote creativity in the business arena, and to educate and inspire the next creative generation.

“As champions of commercial creativity, AWARD aims to raise standards of creative excellence across a range of disciplines – emerging as well as established,” said Craig Davis, AWARD Chairman.
“In the annual AWARD show, we can create more space and opportunity to recognise and celebrate great creative work, reflecting how the marketing and communications industries have evolved and are evolving.”

Accordingly, several new categories have been created for 2011, including music video, applications, social media, environmental design, and branded content. As well, a new award for Creative Innovation will challenge entrants to contribute a solution that defies convention. It is anticipated that the award will draw unexpected ideas from industries both connected to, and beyond, advertising.

“Creativity is a prerequisite of commercial success and of prosperity,” said Craig Davis. “We believe it is the single most valuable asset for business today, and that through inclusiveness and collaboration, that value can only increase.”

The AWARD 2011 Call for Entries will be launched in coming days. The AWARD show will take place on March 11, 2011, as part of the Creative Festival taking place from 9-11 March.

See the AWARD site for more information.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution – Defy Physics from Resin on Vimeo.

Taking inspiration from futuristic films such as Bladerunner, Resin (a visual effects, animation and live action studio based in Australia and China) have created a commercial for Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evolution, displayed only in CG. By studying real track footage of the Evo, they were able to apply a high level of detail, and produce a convincingly realistic result.

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Client: Tropfest
FSM: Concept / Design / 3D

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Kate McCurdy

Frame, Set & Match (FSM) are one of the largest independently owned post houses in Australia. Based in Sydney, they specialise in design, visual effects, colour grading, compositing and digital intermediate. With a strong background in design, they have worked on commercials, feature films, television series, re-branding, music videos, and most recently the graphics package for Tropfest 8, the largest short film festival in the world. Not only did FSM create two packages for the event, they were also a sponsor of Tropfest 8, which reflects the company’s strong philosophy of supporting and fostering emerging filmmakers, as well as emphasising FSM’s own participatory role in the Australian film and television industry.

Tropfest graphics package
FSM approached Tropfest early in the production of the film festival, as they were keen to be the first design and post production company engaged by Tropfest. The brief was for a graphics treatment for their AV presentation in the form of two packages, one for Tropfest 8 and for Trop Jr, both with a completely different look and feel. FSM’s strong focus on design greatly appealed to the John Polson, founder and Creative Director of Tropfest. He recalls that ‘from the start, they offered amazing design direction and dedication.’
The result of the collaboration between Emile Rademeyer, FSM’s Senior Designer, 3D animator Ferry Taswim, as well as the art direction of Dean Mathers from Spin Communications is a graphics package that well represents the fun, dynamic, exciting and often surprising nature of the film festival. The package can be viewed on the FSM website.

Keep it in house
Frame, Set & Match pride themselves on their state-of-the-art facilities and the expertise of their staff such as the new addition of Crash Carlucci, formerly of Riot, Santa Monica, whom has recently joined the team as senior colourist. The post house is now, thanks to the procurement of two BaseLight film grading systems and their Da Vinci 2K, able to produce high definition grading and digital intermediates for clients looking for flexibility and creative freedom in grading for their film prints.The strength of FSM is that so much is done in house: colour grading, digital intermediates, sound, concept, design, compositing, editing and visual effects, without the need for their clients to outsource for these services. One of the successful examples of this is when FSM worked on Paul Goldman and Alice Bell’s music video for Silverchair’s Straight Lines. The visual effects team at FSM supervised the shoot, provided rushes, transfers and grade, and brought in Stuart Cadzow as lead compositor to work with the team on compositing the live action and special light effects. The visual effects complemented the intense grade to the pictures, and gave the video a distinct look that won the filmmakers ‘Best Video Clip’ at the ARIA Artisan Awards in September 2007.

Client: Sony Australia
Director: Paul Goldman & Alice Bell
FSM: Grade / Flame

Colour grading for commercials and feature films
Colour grading is the process of altering and enhancing the colour of film prints, and FSM have two Millennium telecine suites at their disposal for HD and Standard definition scanning. The main functions of digital colour grading are most often to restore and compensate for errors in the filming from the shoot, such as changing lighting conditions, but also to optimise the print for compositing and visual effects, and to change the mood or look of the print. FSM are often called upon to grade film for commercials, especially those that require strong branding such as car commercials for the likes of the Mitsubishi Outlander, Toyota TRD Aurion as well as Volvo’s ‘Destination Life’ campaign. These commercials also incorporated composition and visual effects facilitated by FSM’s Flame systems, popular with art directors and producers for their interactivity and flexibility, especially in branding projects.

Agency: Euro RSCG Worldwide
FSM: Design / Grade / Flame

FSM have also completed colour grading on a number of Australian and international feature films, such as Suburban Mayhem, Jindabyne, House of Flying Daggers, and have produced digital intermediates for Catch a Fire and Clubland. Mark Wareham, Director of Photography for Clubland, praised FSM on their chosen technologies: ‘The strongest asset of your DI system is that there are no surprises when you screen the answer print. All detail and subtleness of the colour is preserved. [Their] FilmLight process incorporating the NorthLight scanner, TrueLight calibration and BaseLight grading ensures the organic look of the negative is preserved with no video artifacts.’ Clubland was well received at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007 with the final print delivered by FSM.

Design and re-branding
FSM are keen to promote their strong design background, and interest in creating concepts and designs for clients, as well as maintaining their reputation as a finishing house. Their talent for design has been recognised with their recent work for the Tropfest film festival and their rebranding of the NRL and Football for Fox Sports in 2007. Michael Neill, Executive Producer for NRL and Swimming at Fox Sports said that FSM ‘came back with a design concept that took the look of our broadcasts in a new direction, while displaying a complete understanding of our aims and objectives.’

Client – Fox Sports
Concept / Design / 3D / Flame

FSM was established in 1984 as one offline edit suite and from their quality work on commercials and music videos has seen them to grow into a significant post house in Australia. Their versatile business model allows them to take on cost-effective and simple projects such as transfers, to more complex digital intermediates, compositing and high definition deliverables for commercials and feature films. Frame, Set & Match’s recent successful graphics package for the Tropfest Film Festival will display their impressive talents in design to a worldwide audience.

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Matt Taylor and Mark Simpson of Sixty40

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How to achieve a balance between commercial, the interesting and the beautiful.

Sydney motion graphics and animation studio, Sixty40, is definitely on a roll. Headed by Matt Taylor, Animation Director (the non-bearded one) and Mark Simpson, Design Director (bearded), one word that seems to sum up the last seven years of Sixty40 is ‘awesome’.

Beginnings
The two founding members of Sixty40 come from relatively different backgrounds and areas of Australia. Mark grew up in Adelaide and moved to Sydney to work in digital design and interactive media (which he now claims to despise). Meanwhile, Matt studied Graphic Investigation in a Canberra art school before returning to Sydney and finding work at a ‘doomed Internet company’ where is also where he and Mark met. Soon afterwards Sixty40 was born and they have never looked back. Rather, they both have their eyes fixed on the future, producing more work that reflects the 60/40 balance between the commercially focused and the interesting and beautiful.

The Eduganda Panda Show
Sixty40 has become well known for their creative ideas, innovative approach and their wacky sense of humour which constantly shines through in their work. One such example is the 26 x 30 second animated series, ‘The Eduganda Panda Show’ which is broadcast as part of The Music Jungle on Saturday mornings on Channel 9 Australia. Dubbed ‘Australia’s strangest, shortest cartoon’, it is scripted, voiced and drawn by the team at Sixty40, playfully pushing the limits of its PG rating. Inspired by its short duration, the show is jam-packed with colourful graphics and sound as another misguided, crazy lesson from the Eduganda Panda (Education + Propaganda + Panda) is conducted. Episodes of the show first aired in April, 2007 and plans for a second series of thirteen 11-minute shows are currently underway.

The Eduganda Panda Show

The Music Jungle
Sixty40 are also responsible for The Music Jungle’s logo, titles and packaging for the show, commissioned by Headlock Media. The brief was simple, it required a monkey and a certain piece of music. Sixty40 leapt at the chance to create their ‘no holds barred’ idea which would follow the monkey (named Em’ J) as it travels through different realities until he lands in a field of flowers to join a sing-a-long to the song ‘La’. Drawing their inspiration from the design community, pop culture and even the Muppets in their work, Matt and Mark used ‘every animation style [they] could think of’ from old school 2D and newer 3D animation, to puppets, animal fur, plants and cardboard cut-outs, with the intention that the finished title sequence would ‘stand out even with a Saturday morning hangover’.

The Music Jungle

The Comedy Channel
When The Comedy Channel moved to Melbourne, Sixty40 were given a brief that would help the channel feel at home to its audience in a new city. Matt and Mark’s response was to take their logo, C’fer, and place it within the context of Melbourne’s hot spots, landmarks that would be recognisable to a local audience. To do this, they created a 3D version of the C’fer character in order for it to be able to react effectively within its new environment. The realistic result was due not only to the animation of the character but also matching all the aspects of lighting and other environmental factors, as well as Sixty40′s playfulness showing through in the character’s movement.

Comedy Channel Station Idents

MTV Asia
In building upon and expanding the brand for MTV Asia’s worldwide show MTV Motoalert, Sixty40 recruited work from outside artists to incorporate new artwork and music for the brief. Matt and Mark worked with stencil artist Piers Greville to combine animated stencils with a ’3D matrix like spray paint effect, big fat extruded 3D lines with leaping graff arrows to a slick but gritty title sequence’. Set to a soundtrack composed by Adam Maggs of Sydney electronic outfit Stick Figures fame, the new identity was achieved for the show that highlights the week’s hottest artists on MTV. The flexible design of the identity meant that it could also be adapted to work across not only broadcast, but online, print and merchandising avenues.

The future
Sixty40 has strong ongoing working relationships with clients from the ABC, The Comedy Channel, MTV and VH1 Australia, Sony BMG Australia and Headlock Media, and it’s not hard to see why these clients keep coming back. Aside from winning several awards including Gold for the ‘Best Sponsor Spot’ for their client Jagermeister at the Promax BDA Awards in 2006, Matt and Mark have an infectious sense of humour combined with a good sense of professionalism in their approach to their clients, and this is well reflected in their work. The basis of this stems from a genuine enjoyment in what they do, and an admirable close partnership in which ideas can be bounced back and forth, developed and seen right through to the end, all with a good sense of fun.

Kate McCurdy

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