The 2014 Nelson Arts Guide has been out for a couple of months now and is flying off shop shelves across the region.

It was a great pleasure to work with the RADi team on this special 20-year commemorative issue of the Nelson Arts Guide. This issue showcases over a hundred artists and craftspeople from Nelson to Golden Bay, as well as many of its finest wineries, cafés and cultural entities.

This year we asked the contributing artists to each create one letter in their style for the cover and set them in gold — ink that is. With classic typefaces and a new larger magazine size, the 2014 Nelson Arts Guide is truly a work of art and worth its weight in gold.

Feast for the Senses launched this month and we haven’t been this excited since someone stuck a cone on the top of the Cathedral spire.

Cathy from Uniquely Nelson approached us several months ago to float the idea of creating a local festival in the heart of winter. The aim of the festival would be to draw people into the City to experience some of the great eateries and and bring Nelson alive at night. The festival was to be called Feast for the Senses and would encourage diners to experience food from restaurants they may not have tried before.

The brief was simple: make it bright and make it warm. In winter, people are inclined to huddle around their fires at home, and we wanted to give them a reason to go out and have fun, even if it was cold.

We developed the typography and filigree artwork, then printed it out on to clear acetate along with a unique texture of yellows and reds. We then layered these separate sheets over a light-box and photographed it from above.

The resulting image was a glowing red and yellow backdrop with the Feast for the Senses text seared above. It was warm and inviting, like the glow that spills onto the street from a busy restaurant at night.

We then produced the artwork across multiple formats including a brochure, posters, car signage and website updates. It was a very satisfying job to be a part of, and by all accounts a complete success – many of the events selling out before the the festival commenced.

While a slap across the face is provocative, we actually used projection for a less stinging affect, but still got a lot of attention.

Something bright and bold was needed to kick start the 2014 Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) Creative Industries recruitment drive. The concept recognised that while many people know they have a gift or desire to follow a creative pursuit, they just need encouragement to take the first steps on to the creative pathway. We wanted a campaign to say “hey, you’re creative, put aside your excuses and be who you know you were meant to be”. It needed to encourage viewers to find out more about the suite of choices available from NMIT Creative Industries, including visual arts, digital arts and photography, writing, music and interior design courses.

The resulting ‘Face It – You’re Born to Create’ campaign was literally ‘in your face’ and hard to ignore. We gathered a group of NMIT students, painted their faces white for a blank canvas and then photographed projections of words and images across their faces.

The photographs were used to create images for digital and print advertising. Online ads are linked back to a landing page (borntocreate.co.nz) that introduces visitors to an overview of what’s available at NMIT and acts as a bridge between the advertising and the detail of the NMIT main site. Our role was to come up with the creative ideas, collaborate with tutors and students and execute the campaign. This successful partnership created a sense of ownership with management, staff and students and also gave us a rich resource of images.

The results have been excellent with higher than expected click-through rates and good levels of engagement with the NMIT recruitment team. Smiling faces all round!

Brook Waimarama Sanctuary is building a pest-proof fence around the sanctuary and need financial support. We have created a case statement document to help communicate the vision of the future for the sanctuary, with the intention that sponsors will jump on board in making this dream a reality. When the pest-proof fence is completed, an initial irradiation of pests will mean the sanctuary will be virtually pest-free, with native flora and fauna thriving within the sanctuary and spilling out into the wider community.

On the cover of the document is the silhouette of a girl interacting with a fantail – she is made from the imagery of rare native birds and greenery. Like the image of the girl, by supporting this project future generations will be able to interact with native wildlife freely and more readily. We created a range of images from the sanctuary that include illustrations of rare native wildlife, like kaka, kiwi, and tuatara. These illustrations show what could be a reality in the future while being very clear that this dream is not yet a reality – these are not photos of the wildlife, only rough sketches in the sanctuary.

The title of the document “give the gift of nature” is about donations having a real positive impact on the flora and fauna thriving in the sanctuary, and the gift of nature is not just to the sanctuary itself, but to the wider community, and ultimately future generations.

When Frances McElhinney from Nelson School of Music approached us about doing the Nelson Jazz and Blues Festival artwork last year, we jumped on it like a boy on a bouncy castle. We have been designing artwork for local festivals for more than twenty years, and our experience coupled with our enthusiasm was well received by Frances.

Due to budget constraints, we only had enough time to have one decent crack at it — limiting how much we could do creatively. The artwork needed to be bold, bright and connect with people in a tangible way.

We began by creating the typography — made by hand, using sponge brushes and paint. This technique gave us big bold lettering with a humanistic feel. We then created the background artwork with a combination of sponges, paint and ink rollers. Hot reds and bright yellows with the Jazz and Blues Festival typography over top created a finish that was exactly what we had been looking for.

It was a bright, fun, and in-your-face design that met the brief and got people excited about the festival. We produced a 24-page booklet, posters, web artwork, and billboards that painted Nelson red for the months leading up to the festival.

“It’s looking fresh, funky, and very summertime and that’s what it’s all about,” said Frances at Jazz and Blues in the Park.

It kicked off with Jazz and Blues in the Park at Nelson’s Fairfield Park. The warm sun was joined by a cool breeze on the park’s slopes making conditions perfect. By 5pm the crowd was estimated at 3000, and each following event was a full house.