Cute, bright, and striking; there’s very little not to love about this identity for Parkette. Based in Hamilton, Canada, Parkette is billed as a boutique shop ‘dedicated to kids and the kids at heart’, selling crafts kits, clothes, accessories, books, homeware, toys, and ‘other treasures’. The name is taken from a term many locals in Hamilton use to describe a...
Few countries on Earth take their food as seriously as Italy. It’s not difficult to justify the enormous pride Italians take in their spectacular culinary heritage, with their cuisine considered the ‘most exported’ on the planet. But while the wider world is undeniably in thrall, Italians’ patriotic palettes create and necessitate a notoriously conservative domestic cooking culture. Italian ingredients, recipes...
Anyone who’s ever had a dog, or just interacted with one, has likely spotted that over and above pretty much anything, food is the centre of their universe. Unfortunately for us, though, it’s not just dog-safe food that they’ll do whatever it takes to get their paws on: human food, it seems, often has the most appeal. But just as...
As the adage goes, ‘Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime’. With this vivid paradigm of self-sufficiency in mind, we can esteem the advent of creative coding in branding, allowing design agencies to hand brands over to clients as generative tools capable of generating limitless...
It’s about time plant-based brands found their sense of humour. Having been a vegan for 17 years now, I can safely say that veggie/vegan brands have historically been tiresomely dull – and until recently, they’ve been allowed to be. But with the recent years’ boom in all things ‘plant based’, simply existing because there’s no other type of soy milk...
There’s a lot to be said for the Instagram-worthiness of, say, a faux-futuristic beauty brand identity that’s all gloopy, metallic, kinetic typography, ‘terminal green’, and unabashedly Gen Z-baiting ‘y2k’ art direction. It’s easy to assume that projects that allow designers the creative freedom for unabashed experimentation – playing fast and loose with legibility and lofty conceptual thinking – are the...
The economics of regional farming, in the face of global market forces, continues to be unfavourable to local producers; narrowing margins and pushing some out of business. Alongside this, unfair and self-defeating politics continue to chip away at a basic message; locally grown food is a good, not just in a regional economic sense, but in terms of the health...
The competitive landscape for experiences has been significantly catalysed post-pandemic. Perhaps the sensory deprivation of stay-at-home orders created an intense need to make up for lost time, indulge in all manner of out-of-home activities and platform them. Times have changed. Old needs to feel new and fight on equal footing with what appears to be an endless stream of pop-up...
Every year an impressive 40,000 humpback whales travel along the Sydney coastline. This annual migration pattern is one of the many awe-inspiring natural spectacles that make the city so unique. It is fitting then, that the New Sydney Waterfront Company chose to revitalise Sydney’s Western Harbour Precinct with an installation of thirty whale tail sculptures, telling thirty individual stories, or...
Maybe the recent explosion in astrology is thanks to a more secular society; or a post-Covid sense of generalised uncertainty that’s left us grasping for answers. Perhaps it’s the rise of Instagram/TikTok influencers; or maybe it’s just because its foundations lie in astronomical reality that’s been harnessed by civilisations stretching back tens of thousands of years. Whatever it is, where...
A visual identity just as Instagrammable as the ‘the world’s most Instagrammed cake’. Sydney bakery Black Star Pastry has been on the ascendancy, from local pastry maker to global cult status, racking up millions of views, thousands of loyal followers and generating hype around its ‘original cakes woven together with poetic storytelling’. Working with Japanese illustrator Noritake, (known for his...
The skincare industry is a varied visual landscape. At one end of the spectrum, brands like Glossier and Soft Services (reviewed July 2022) have found balance in softness and understated minimalism. At the other Dr.Jart+ (reviewed Jan. 2018) and Malin+Goetz bring pharmacy-chic with functional, type-led packaging. And then we have our classic, heritage brands – like Kiehl’s and Elizabeth Arden – which...