Decently Exposed

Reviews & The Age 2009 Good Food Guide Awards

allison — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:37:09 +0000

Pasquale (see latest project) of Three, One, Two and Cumulus Inc., just emailed to say that they have just been reviewed by John Lethlean at The Age describing Cumulus Inc as (full article here) “This so-called “Eating House and Bar”, a big, open, informal, architectural loft at the arty end of Flinders Lane is closer than anything I can think of in Melbourne right now to reflecting the times and priorities of food and wine lovers. Style, integrity, imagination and creativity without the pretence, the palaver or the cost.”

Furthermore Cumulus Inc might have hit the market at the right time if reading the/between the lines suggest a bit of decline in fine dining due to a bit of restraint with rising interest rates etc.. and according to Necia Wilden of The Age Good Food Guide who writes (full article here)

“Fine dining is really under pressure and we think this decline is a reflection of hard times but it does mean from the diner’s point of view that we are seeing a lot of restaurants that are doing the same old, same old,” Wilden said.

Enter Cumulus Inc. Will post soon about the signage we have installed here, but also to mention that we have played a small signage part in restaurants reviewed and award winners for The Age Good Food Guide Awards for 2009 held last evening. Dunkeld Royal Mail Hotel won top honours for best country hotel, Cumulus Inc and their wonderful review, and Gingerboy for young chef of the year.

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Gold bling if that’s your thing …

allison — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:19:13 +0000

This one has just popped up as a signage installation (see taylormadesigns latest project - transfer button at top of page) but being mirrored gold acrylic it could sit just as beautifully in the kitchen offset against a bit of black with some textured wood and stainless steel elements. Mirrored gold acrylic for elegance, refinement and a bit of kitchen bling. Apart from reflecting elements opposite, is perfectly functional as a Wall Scrawl. Just add your very own black text rather than the vinyl black variety shown here.

Some more coloured acrylics images here; to also give you a sense of the transparency of colour and how the play with light …

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10,000 jobs …. yay!

allison — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:09:50 +0000

taylormadesigns has just written its 10,000th job bag and we did start at job bag no. 1 way back in 1992 when john and his bright blue kombi opened the doors. Thanks to the guys at taylormade; rik for organising and trent for designing and the provision of yummy afternoon tea for everyone!

We hope the next 10,000 jobs and 16 years are built on all the improvements, successes and mistakes we’ve made along the way.

Thanks to all the people who have walked through our doors: the fly by nighters; some who come and go and revisit from time to time; and those businesses and people who have gone the distance and with whom we hope to continue doing business for the next 10 thou. …. please enjoy a bit of virtual cake courtesy of everyone at taylormadesigns!

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mini MINI (affectionately known as “Corky”)

allison — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:40:04 +0000

Ulrike Stumvoll has finished her internship with MINI Australia (after working directly with their MINI Challenge Race Project) and is heading back to Germany.

Hi Rik,
To be honest the Corky was my favorite project …. This said I couldn’t believe it when the MINI Team gave me that lovely little car. I will put it on my desk in the head office. That is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well done.
Thanks. Uli

Georgia Hobart and the MINI team conjured up the perfect gift idea as a memento of her time and efforts - Especially with Car 25 which you may remember featured on our site a little while back as Corky. We scaled down the ‘Corky’ artwork to suit a model Cooper S @ 18:1 - broke out the stencil knife and started wrapping. We produced a custom turntable for display and for the team to sign their good wishes.

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Gran’s Suitcases ….

allison — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:06:38 +0000

Gran, who is actually my husband’s grandmother, but with whom I developed a wonderful friendship, was about to throw away this and another suitcase which were actually her father’s (H.P’s) travelling suitcases back in the early 1900s. At the time I was visiting Gran and writing her life story, Gran brought out these suitcases and asked if I could use the contents in my writing. They were filled with all sorts of paper mementos of HPs travels and only recently did I start to photograph all the wonderful images which I will share on this blog to give further inspiration to my work.

In these boxes Gran was about to toss, were remnants of her past and that of her father’s. H.P travelled abroad by ship and later plane and gathered lots of bits of information: travel guides, postcards, calendars, paper doilies etc ~ ‘ephemera’.

I only opened the box recently and started taking photos of handwritten notes on menus and postcards and bits of paper and all the souvenirs of one man’s journey. A good omen these boxes of ephemera, I might just go on a bit of journey with the contents … will post again soon.

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AutoSkin Care & Maintenance

allison — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:05:21 +0000

For clients who have their car wrapped in AutoSkin here are a few tips on care and maintenance to ensure that your AutoSkin keeps in good shape for what we hope is the lease life of your vehicle … so here goes:

To keep me, your new AutoSkin, vibrant and alive, please always soothe me with a warm soapy water hand wash with a soft cloth or sponge only. Treat me lovingly, but remember:

No high pressure water guns or blasters
No abrasive scourers or loufers
No nasty solvents, degreasers or other heavy duty cleaners
No presents from birds or other animals left on me to bake in the sun.

Should my AutoSkin begin to blister or crack, don’t pick at me like a sore, just call my friends at decentlyexposed.

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Handwritten Gold Job

allison — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:08:54 +0000

Our guys are all trained to use gold leaf | transfer gold but the use of this skill and indeed signwriting (freehand) in the workplace is limited these days to Honour Boards in long established sporting clubs (Toorak Services Club) and schools (last year we did Melbourne Grammar’s Honour Boards) where such boards still exist and are still updated using the gold leaf or transfer method. Because of the lack of experience the young guys never get a chance to use this skill which is a shame. For Honour Boards we tend to use the transfer gold method where we first signwrite the letter in an undercoat yellow and then transfer the gold (real gold) onto the painted letter.

With the gold leaf method the gold is shaved and floated onto the surface. In the design world’s quest for font integrity and perfection the handwritten style has been replaced by the forme cut vinyl or digitally printed versions but there is a place for both. A good comparison can be made between this and its modern version (black and gold lettering, forme cut and not real gold, applied to a window for Melbourne City Gallery) - see previous project.

Check out Margaret Kilgallen’s work for more examples of signwriting as artform. Image courtesy art:21.

Signwriting as an artform ~ like craft and art and food, where slow time honoured traditions are gaining value in a fast moving, techno savvy world. Swings and roundabouts back to appreciating the time and individual human effort that goes into creating by hand; that which cannot be computer generated gains favour. For all those signwriters who love signwriting, perhaps this one is for you. Who would have thought that signwriting and the backyarders - illegal graffiti could now be considered valuable from an historical and artistic point of view.

For a look at the rise and rise of graffiti as an artform check out the work of Banksy. It is stunning!

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Art Actually …

allison — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Have been playing around with a collection of artwork created by the prodigies at home, when you think about it, children’s artwork is art in its purest sense, without forethought, no mind games or tricks on what one should put to the canvas, just whatever arrives, however primitive and simple, often alive and colourful and engaging. We have put a lot of our kids artwork up on the walls in our hallway, not paying it too much respect as the blue tac lets loose and corners droop but guests and friends and family often stop to look and comment and enjoy. Like old people whose wisdom we seldom seek, are the children whose artwork we hide in drawers, not all is good, but sometimes their sense of colour and its many combinations and space and wild imagination create something special - worth a second look anyhow.

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Changing Print Mediums …

allison — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:11:11 +0000

A fair bit of crossover occurs on some of our sites but we separate to avoid confusion. What is common is print and what differentiates one site from the other is the print medium. On the PrintAsArt site I have posted about my children’s artwork which could easily crossover onto Wall Scrawl. The difference being that artwork can be printed on all sorts of print mediums - blinds, canvas, banner material, awnings, etc but when it comes to Wall Scrawl, the idea is to add function as a memo board. The vibrancy of the image (next page) would be very confusing with text all over it and hardly legible which is the purpose of a memoboard, so it needs to be treated differently (see image) … screening (cutting back) the central image so that the scrawl is legible.

Some Wall Scrawls, particularly the corporate Wall Scrawls need lines of demarcation, defined logo areas, open clean space to scrawl away but a doodle board can mix it up a little; in the home it doesn’t necessarily have to be all function, no form so here’s the example of the artwork appearing on PrintAsArt and then how it would then be interpreted on a Wall Scrawl perhaps dropping back the central image (previous page), adding a screen layer to block out the impact of the image, opens up a space upon which to scrawl. This space could also less defined, more organic, slipping in and out of the design so when not in use you would view as an aesthetic piece.

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Colourful by Day, Reflective by Night

allison — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:44:03 +0000

National Protective Services (NPS) Smarts and now the first Yaris in their growing fleet of Reflective AutoSkins create a bit of branding uniformity. Street presence is important for security vehicles to scare the baddies away. The more out there, the greater the deterrent I’m guessing and because they have created such a strong, bold presence with their colours and ability to be seen at night, it should help reduce the crime in the areas they patrol. Being seen and seen often is good for business too. These cars are fully reflective and take a long time to do, but boy what a result.

NPS are another client that keeps coming back … don’t know whether it’s the service or the result. These guys like to get photo updates throughout the AutoSkin process even ringing up to get the next batch at times; they treat their cars like babies circulating the images around the office. Their gig is to keep your premises safe at night and if the way they treat their cars is the kinda service they give to their clients, then you can rest easy at night.

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