Ron Mueck visit

Last week we took an afternoon off to visit the Ron Mueck exhibition that is currently on at the Christchurch Art Gallery. It was really amazing to see the amount of detail Ron Mueck puts into his sculptures. Here is a taste of what it was like.

Quaky Cat Launch

Last night was the very special launch of a very special book.

Quaky Cat was created by Diana Noonan and illustrated by Gavin Bishop in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquake. Diana wanted do her part to help quake victims the only way she could - by writing a story for children.


On a cold Christchurch morning, while the city was sleeping,
before the birds roused him with twitters and cheeping,
curled up on the end of his friend Emma’s bed,
Tiger woke with a start ... and a feeling of dread.
Tiger fled from the house with a leap and a bound
as, louder than thunder, from deep underground,
came a roar and a shudder and terrible shaking!
Around him, the city was rolling and quaking.


And how lucky are we to have been asked by the publisher Scholastic NZ to design this book!
Anita took on the project and worked through a number of different concepts in the FOUR days of production she had to meet the timeframe!


While both Diana and Gavin had chosen to donate their royalities to charity (Diana to The Women's Refuge and Gavin to Te Tai Tamariki), we were asked to please charge the full fee for our services along with other Christchurch suppliers who were all supported during the production process. 


This was huge for us! Having managed to continue to pay our staff straight after the earthquake when we had no water and power, we were not in a cashflow position to make further donations. As much as we really believed in the project. We are really grateful to Scholastic NZ for this offer of support when they were also donating some of their profits to Christchurch charities.


This feeling of community and support was continued onto the launch last night with a level of personal caring that we have been lucky enough to enjoy here in Christchurch.


To have our services linked to such talented people as Diana and Gavin and acknowledged by such wonderful clients as Scholastic is a very special experience and one we will remember for a very long time. Thank you.

How green is an ebook reader vs. a book

The green theme and ebooks are HUGE on our side of the door at present.

This article recently appeared in the BooksellersNZ "The Read'. Very thought provoking stuff, with a good message on sustainability. Sharing is everything!

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/04/opinion/04opchart.html

iCandy

It's only occasionally in a life-time that you are given the opportunity to redesign a classic. We've been really lucky in the past twelve month and have been asked to complete not one but three rebrands.

Here's all the concepts we submitted to Penguin for the Margaret Mahy Classics series. Which one would you pick? Check out our latest newsletter to find out which one made it to the bookshops.

Can't get away with it anymore!

Hello All

As you are aware, Kim likes us to write a fortnightly blog - she didn't tell me this was a requirement when I accepted the job and have pretty much come up with every excuse under the sun as to why I can't do one. This was successful for the first 3 months but then alas I had to complete one - the girls are still laughing about that one because not only did I not manage to actually post to our site - I as a completely uncreative person managed to create my own blog - called funny enough "Finally my blog". I would like to add that not only did I create my own blog site, I even managed to decorate the text with a library frame - how creative is that!

Needless to say that managed to get me another couple of months off not having to post but with my 6 months employment coming up the requests to blog are now serious! I am struggling with how to make accounting matters exciting for you all so thought I would either do a Book Review or post a Quote for you to dwell on - this week is quote week so here goes :

"The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he become an adolescent: the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise!

Bet you are just hanging out to read my next blog!

Don't believe everything you see....

Here's an awesome short video that shows how much make-up + photoshop can change a person.

Just another day in the office!

What's happening in yours?