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Growing through Covid: what 2020 taught me as an agency owner

By Vaughn Davis, Creative Director and Owner – The Goat Farm Ltd It’s been a year or so, Facebook Memories tells me, since we stopped going out for a beer, became obsessed with making our own bread and started pinning posters of Doctors Ashley Bloomfield and Siouxsie Wiles over the pop stars and All Blacks…

3 days ago by

Autumn Conversations: Meet the Christchurch panel, Wednesday 14 April 2021

CHRISTCHURCH DA Event: Autumn Conversations – The business of design today April 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Plato Creative, 63 Manchester Street, Christchurch Get Tickets   One year on from the emergence of Covid-19 in Aotearoa and we have all been affected by the global pandemic in many and different ways. It’s time…

5 days ago by

Free Dumb Sessions, Lee Parkinson (Strategy Creative)

Looking for something to expand your mind this long weekend? Tune into Lee Parkinson’s Free Dumb Sessions podcast. Lee is the strategic director of Strategy Christchurch and describes himself as relentlessly curious, and fascinated with human behaviour “by what we actually do, not just what we say, think, or feel.” The DA team have been…

2 weeks ago by

Getting Under the Hood with… Donna McCort

Our next Under the Hood is Wednesday the 24th of March. You are invited to join us online as two designers walk us through how a design project worked. At the upcoming event, Donna McCort (CD at Dow Goodfolk) is going to walk us through a recent project; in the lead up we learned more…

4 weeks ago by

5 minutes with… Mark Easterbrook

In today’s 5 minutes with… we are excited to introduce one of our favourite writers Mark Easterbrook. Mark collaborated with DA on the 2020 field guide, our most recent Be seen. Be heard. Be friend campaign, on the messaging for Kātoitoi the Aotearoa Design Archive and is facilitating our upcoming Writing for Designers workshop in…

1 month ago by

Meet our Friends… Danny Carlsen — Head of Design at Shine

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so we’re happy to get the chance to speak with Danny Carlsen — Head of Design at Shine Limited. We spoke to Danny about his career journey, the creative culture they have fostered at Shine, empowering team members to contribute and cross-pollination within…

1 month ago by

Meet our Friends… David Bourke, iceberg

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so we’re happy to get the chance to speak with David Bourke, iceberg’s Creative Director (who is also presenting at Under the Hood this Wednesday the 24th of February.) We spoke to David about his career path (highlighting a thread of music), the…

2 months ago by

Getting under the hood with… Sarah Nguyen

Our next Under the Hood is this Wednesday the 24th of Feburary. Thanks to our event partners Adobe, you are invited to join us online as two designers walk us through how a design project worked and an Adobe rep shares tips and tricks to improve your daily workflow. At the upcoming event, Sarah Nguyen…

2 months ago by

Meet our friends… Megan Bardsley

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so we’re happy to get the chance to speak with Megan Bardsley a freelance graphic designer with 15 years industry experience in New Zealand and the UK. We spoke about her career pathway, creative process, landing your dream job early in your career, juggling…

2 months ago by

Introducing Daz Martin – DA Events Producer

Late last year Design Assembly welcomed our newest team member Daz Martin. He has extensive experience in the arts sector and sees event production as an artform. Daz is currently finalising our program, ensuring we deliver the Aotearoa design community a rich round up of events and workshops in 2021 and beyond. Say kia ora…

2 months ago by

DA Conversations Podcast with Donna McCort

Kia ora and welcome to Design Assembly Conversations. In this series we talk to Aotearoa NZ designers, hear their stories and celebrate their work. I’m Louise and today I’m talking to Donna McCort from Dow Goodfolk. Donna McCort is the creative director at Dow Goodfolk, a 25 year young brand design agency based in Auckland.…

2 months ago by

Meet our friends… Bryce Groves

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so we’re happy to get the chance to speak with Bryce Groves who recently returned to NZ from the UK. Bryce is an eclectic, experienced creative with a head for ideas, a knack for film and photography, and an eye for the practicalities…

4 months ago by

Holiday Reading

Summer is here and the holidays are approaching with some pace, which for Aotearoa design means time away from the mac! Wherever you recharge over the festive season we hope there is time to relax and unwind. Many of our DA friends and partners are prolific readers so we asked a few to share their…

4 months ago by

Baggy Pants and Butter Paper… Guillaume Martel, Media Design

This interview is the third in a series from Hamish Besley a third-year student at Victoria University Wellington – Te Herenga Waka, Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation. Each interview was first published in Baggy Pants and Butter Paper, an editorial publication for students by students (conceived in Hamish’s final year of study). The interviews…

4 months ago by

Meet our Friends… Heath Lowe

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so were happy to get the chance to speak with Special Group co-founder Heath Lowe. Heath’s career began in the US and Europe, where he worked alongside some of the world’s most ambitious companies to bring their unique vision and products to market…

5 months ago by

Meet our Friends… Sara Fraser of Sartoria

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so were happy to get the chance to speak with Sara Fraser of Sartoria about her career, creative process, navigating (and learning from) challenges, a love affair with Cuba street, and must do’s for creatives visiting Wellington. Friends want their friends to succeed.…

5 months ago by

5 minutes with… Toby Morris

Art director, illustrator and comic Toby Morris takes big (often challenging) issues and distils them into digestible engaging visuals. Recently appointed creative director of the Spinoff, Toby’s collaboration with microbiologist and science communicator Dr Siouxsie Wiles informed us all how to stay safe and limit the spread of Covid-19. This important work was shared internationally…

5 months ago by

Postgraduate Design Research — Jaime Kapa, Unitec

Welcome to Postgraduate Design Research – an opportunity to profile a selection of current design postgraduate students and their projects across our tertiary institutions. Today, we speak with Jaime Kapa from Unitec. What is your background and how did you get into design? I moved to London after graduating at AUT. I never used my…

5 months ago by

DA Conversations Podcast with Sam Allan

Kia ora and welcome to Design Assembly Conversations. In this series we talk to NZ designers, hear their stories and celebrate their work. I’m Louise, Design Assembly Founder and Director and today I’m talking to Sam Allan. Sam is the founder and managing director of Onfire Design a specialist branding and packaging design agency based…

5 months ago by

Meet our Friends… Sam O’Flaherty

We love the opportunity to get to know our DA friends better, so were happy to get the chance to speak with Designworks Sam O’Flaherty about his career, language as design, favourite (and least favourite) turns of phrase, the power of messaging, work that he is proud of and ‘being a chameleon without becoming invisible’. Friends want…

5 months ago by

5 minutes with… Bron Thomson

With the creative sector seriously affected by coronavirus pandemic fallout, the Semi Permanent event has been repurposed and reformatted to meet new objectives, inspire and help ‘reboot’ our industry. On Thursday 12 November at Auckland’s Aotea Centre, New Zealand’s leading creative practitioners will showcase the breadth, depth, diversity and potential of the creative industries. Ahead…

5 months ago by

Grow, Designed By Media Design School Students: Dannah Angela Soriano, Erika Marasigan, Logan Ware, Yancong Guo,

‘Grow’ is a volunteer recruitment campaign that promotes volunteering to people who are passionate, eager to learn, and are willing to give back to the community. The initiative designed by a collective of Media Design School Students was recently awarded in the Next Gen NG: Digital Design category in the Good Design Awards. Design Assembly…

6 months ago by

By Day By Night… Wintec’s Trudi Hewitt

By Day By Night is an interview series that profiles graphic design tutors from design schools throughout New Zealand. We learn about their role as a teacher and their own personal design practice. Today we hear from Trudi Hewitt who works at Wintec, School of Media Arts in Hamilton. What is your official title at…

6 months ago by

Getting teams excited about remote collaboration

Kate McGuinness speaks to Nina Fountain, Workplace Strategist and the founder of Transformed Teams about how creatives can work together, even when we’re apart.   How can creative teams foster that ‘spirit of collaboration’ remotely? The awesome thing about creative work is the energy of creating – it is those fantastic moments when you lose…

6 months ago by

5 minutes with… Caro Armstrong

Portfolio Recruitment has been a loyal longtime partner of Design Assembly. Their support helps us support our community. The portfolio team are creative industry recruitment specialists, they live and breath Aoteraoa design. Portfolio connect clients with talent in our industry in permanent, contract and freelance capacity, across creative, strategic, digital, client service and production. We…

6 months ago by

 

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