Yes it has been a while, however being quiet is just a reflection of also being busy. The months have ticked on and Melbourne has passed abruptly from one season to the next.

We have lots of WIP projects across, brand, traditional web and NextWebTM as well as having completed projects for the likes of White Labelled, Melbourne Museum, Brotherhood of St Laurence and The Royals.

We are collaborating with InFrameTV and John Warwicker (Tomato) on an exciting new InFrame project.

Also just round the corner is our 4th birthday which will see the launch of our brand spanking new website.

So while quiet you can rest assured we’ve been busy at F/F.

Recent Live projects

Fisher-Price® Expert Series website and press campaign
We were engaged by our good friends Gun Communications to produce creative and develop a website for the new Fisher-Price® Expert Series initiative Step by Step Parenting. The campaign provides practical parenting tips to parents from a ongoing series of Fisher-Price® Experts – the first is Kathy Walker. See the website

Phillip Johnson Sustainable Landscape Systems
We have recently completed work on a new interim website for one of Australia’s leading Sustainable Landscape Designers – Phillip Johnson. Working with Gun Communications we have also taken care of creative for print and promotional collateral for the brand, in time for their involvement with this years Open Gardens Scheme. See the website

Selector – architecture, building, design and landscape products
F/F were engaged by our good friends at Reuten to provide the creative direction and logotype for the new project from Architecture Media – Selector.

Brotherhood of St Laurence
Continuing our work for BSL we have implemented updates to their successful Brotherhood Green website including the new Phoenix Fridges campaign.

Just Auto Group websites
Late in 2008 F/F were engaged to work with Just on the development of a new independent classified network for Australian Automotive. The result is a social media and classified crossover network under the Just Auto umbrella. Spanning Cars, Bikes, 4×4 & Outdoors as well as Trucks and Heavy Equipment the network is the leading destination for genuine Auto enthusiasts, leading the way as the real alternative, in this space.

F/F were responsible for product and concept development, information archtitecture, prototyping and creative concepts for the project. This also lead to us developing a re-design for their existing print publications, to bring the whole portfolio of online and offline titles together. See the website

Clive Peeters e-commerce
F/F were a proud member of the White Labelled team that developed the all new Clive Peeters e-commerce website. F/F worked on the project from winning the initial pitch, through IA, creative development, user testing and continues to provide strategic creative direction for the brand online. The project also included a version for Rick Hart in WA and the company website.

The site is already getting plenty of praise across both the digital and retail industries.

Other News
We are working on some concepts for new tablet devices and WordPress integration – anyone interested in collaborating in this area please email us.

We have a number of other web and brand projects on the go with our good friendsThe Royals and Code Create, stay tuned for updates on these in the coming weeks.

Check out the createdemocracy.com event brought to you by the team at SUMO. We been invited to include our ‘Brewster’s Millions’ inspired submissions to the exhibition book.

Posted via web from arcd

One interesting aspect of this identity will be how strong it is compared to the actual Metropolitan Melbourne identity. Essentially this is a brand that only applies to the CBD not Greater Melbourne which seems a shame as it is a very comprehensive and adaptive as a brand system which would certainly answer the challenges of a brand working across a whole Metropolitan area.

F/F are looking forward to seeing the brand in action here in Melbourne – but note the local reaction so far (including the desing community) has been a little frosty.

Can’t help but noting that it also has a little nod to the system Wolff Olins developed for NYC earlier this year.

http://www.wolffolins.com/nyc.php

Posted via web from tony’s posterous

The space is a couple of weeks away from launch but we are very excited and can’t wait to show you some pictures.

A little quote from Dave King at The Royals put’s it like this “Recent times luxury brands getting in front of an aspirational audience (girls 13-28), a platform for the promotion of models to help them have conversations with their loyal followers. And yes, a source of hot new talent as well as existing talent on the rise.”

Already the site is causing a bit of a social media storm:
Latest from Twitter
From between0and1 blog
From frockwriter blog

F/F is keeping itself pretty busy at the moment with a number of projects all coming to ahead in the next few weeks & months.

We are working on a new site and SEO project for Ambisol to help them take advantage of new business being generated by the latest Federal Government rebate on home insulation.

A number of projects with our good friends at White Labelled have been underway since Christmas including an very exciting major launch due in the coming months.

Continued projects for some of our favourite clients including Just Magazines and anzuk* have also been keeping us busy in the past few weeks, some of which will be announced on the site in the coming weeks.

And finally we have been working on a great little multi-author blog site -’Modelfeed’ – with The Royals and Disciple for the model/fashion community – this little beauty (pardon the pun) will be dropping soon and everyone involved is expecting it to make a big splash in the fashion new sector.

The LMC are a State Government Corporation responsible for managing South Australia’s portfolio of land assets. Their primary aim is to provide social, economic and environmental benefits to all South Australians, by creating, facilitating and developing a range of land-based opportunities.

The Port project site follows up the launch of the main LMC Corporate site earlier in the year.

Find out more about our friends at Nicknack.

It’s true the lack of posts is due to a busy period here at F/F. The lead up to Christmas has seen a few things of interest come our way and 2009 is certainly looking like it will be a rosy time on the work front. In the meantime it’s been pitch docs, costings, timings and continuing creative work…

In general news our work on the Pioneer Australia website, has been recognised for an Outstanding Achievment Award by the Interactive Media Awards. F/F were invited to Art Direct the project by Flash Group where we worked alongside the digital team that included Paul Wilson now of White Labelled.

We are also beginning to look into the start up of a collaborative studio space in Melbourne, bringing together some of our favourite collaborators under one roof, in a space we hope will be a little more than just another studio space – stay tuned for news.

Working with David and Paul Wilson – White Labeled – F/F were responsible for delivering the new brand identity and direction for this network that will exist primarily online at the Mates of Melbourne website.

The new identity echoes a tradition of strong and bold identites for AFL clubs and their associated brands but is intended to stand alone from the main Melbournefc brand. The message of the logo is ‘support in numbers’ reflecting the mission of MoM to create a strong business network through Melbourne football.

Visit the Mates of Melbourne site to read about the launch night.

For the 125-day event, employees wear pedometers and measure their daily step count. They then enter those steps into an event-specific website to embark on a virtual journey around the world. Used daily by more than 50,000 participants across three continents, F/F were asked by Flash Group to develop the online direction for the 2008 version of the site which incorporated an integrated Flash and Javascript framework.

Built and developed by the in house team at Flash Group the final site presented a great example of seamless technology integration.

We’re very pleased to announce that Adobe have chosen the site as today’s ‘Site Of The Day‘.

A big well done to everyone involved.

1) Mrs Eaves – love those ligatures
2) ITC Serif Gothic Light – so 70′s
3) Akzidenz Grotesk – swiss school all the way
4) Neutraface family
5) Gotham Bold

Image: Ceramic stem vases for the 1972 Munich Olympics, designed by Otl Aicher and his team.

Our mobile url is ffburo.mofuse.mobi

It would be fair to say the poster has never really gone away, from gig posters to general fly postering public spaces are generally adorned with this visual medium. But over the last couple of years the poster has really hit back hard amongst the design community itself. For many posters have become the affordable art form of the day – limited runs, high print values, metallic inks, exclusive designs by rock star artist/designers what more could we want.

And so it is that the popularity of designing posters has seen a resurgence. Every other design graduate these days has a handful of witty, satirical, well crafted posters in their folio. There are galleries and websites dedicated to new and classic designs alike. And we are now seeing re-issues of rare and hard to find typographic masterpieces like Wim Crouwel’s – Vormgevers design from 1968.

At F/F we like this a lot, as avid collectors of all things art and design we have a veritable collection of our own favourite poster pieces.

In the meantime for fans of typographic/design posters there are some great collections to see at Flickr:
Swiss Sports posters
Gig/club posters by Pinch
Experimental Jet Set
Olt Aicher classics and more at Blanka

Please post your favourite poster related links to us below…

So what if any are the benefits of this working model and why should you consider engaging a micro agency for your next project?

For our own part the motivation behind Function/Form adopting this model was the very nature of our parts – we are a number of creatives in different fields of expertise, in a number of different countries. On the whole we are solo practitioners, we collaborate on projects, but also pursue solo interests and projects outside of the practice. This contrast of solo and joint pursuits is very much the essence of the agenda for us and something we believe to be key in pushing the creative boundaries. It brings a freshness and energy that would be lost were we to all set up a traditional agency model, move into one big studio, hire some account managers and slip into the old routine.

We see ourselves as complimentary parts of an organic whole but it is key to maintain a structure that actively encourages our individual differences as much as our complimentary visions – this is very much the essence around which collaboration thrives.

This is stretched further when actively seeking out other like minded collectives or the micro agencies to work with. It’s a network but not in the large global advertising agency sense. It’s scalability and agility in a market place what no longer has such defined notions of how large a budget or an execution to market should be. And so the power of the collective lies in it’s readiness to adapt, it isn’t anyone thing and by not being bound by a traditional structure it thrives on change and fresh challenges – in today’s every changing markets this makes it a serious contender.

Not to be approached by clients alone – increasingly smaller collectives are being hired by large traditional agencies to provide core expertise at all levels of the creative process on large corporate accounts. In North America and Europe this is seen to have great PR leverage for the launch of a campaign to market – hires to create the new online campaign for . In short the micro agency is seen in the same was as the photographer on the illustrator is an Art Director, a resource you hire in towards the creation of the big idea. Everyone wins: the micro agency get to work on a large international brand with a big budget, the large ad agency delivers a far fresher braver idea that it’s own structure would have allowed and the large international client gets a creative campaign fashioned with more passion and energy that the large ad agency would have delivered but with the safe knowledge that they have resources to deliver a campaign of this scale to market successfully.

We believe this is just the beginning for the collective / micro agency approach and that it marks what are becoming increasingly exciting times for the creative industry. If you are looking for new ideas, energy and a freshness of approach it might be time you looked to a collaborative design practice.