Chippendale New World Art Prize 3

2014 Chippendale New World Art Prize

The Chippendale New World Art Prize opened last night and Fish Tank Creative owner Merryn Bourne was in attendance.

This event mirrors the growth of the Chippendale area, from an industrial suburb to an area full of creative potential and venues. These days Chippendale is full of wonderful galleries and studios, as well as fantastic cafes and restaurants.

Chippendale is an exciting suburb to be in, everywhere you go there is inspiration – whether it’s a new piece of street art or watching the Halo spin on a sunny day. We love this area and being immersed in its creative culture. The New World Art Prize is just one more reason to come to Chippendale and be creatively inspired.

Below are a few snapshots from the evening.

Chippendale New World Art Prize 3 Chippendale New World Art Prize 4 Chippendale New World Art Prize 2 Chippendale New World Art Prize 1

graphic design screen printing5

Graphic designers love a good stencil.

If you think of screen printing, you think Andy Warhols’ depiction of Marilyn Munroe, right?

Basically, screen printing is using a mesh based stencil to transfer ink onto another surface. Sounds simple.

Now to practise. I went to a  screen printing course on the weekend in St Peters, with Steve Wood. Arcade Screen Printing, they are totally down with the profession, and the art of it.

Listening to the theory introduction, my mind was racing with all the ideas that a creative has with a new medium to explore.

More commercial ideas for screen printing are fabric designs, wall paper, t shirts, teatowels, artworks and posters.

Here are some shots from my first attempt. The course didn’t disappoint, and I will be going back for more.

Intuos Creative Stylus

Wacom announces stand alone tablet and new stylus.

Intuos Creative Stylus

 

Here at Fish Tank Creative we’re very excited about the announcement from Wacom for their new stand alone tablets and pressure sensitive stylus for iPad.

The Intuos Creative Stylus for iPad is looking very handy. At an affordable price and offering 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity via Bluetooth, it seems like a great accessory for the iPad. Whilst there are already many stylus pens available for iPads, the ability to have pressure sensitivity when using sketching programs makes this stylus a very appealing choice for anyone working within a creative field.

But what’s really exciting is the announcement of the Cintiq Companion and the Cintiq Companion Hybrid.

wacom-cintiq-companion-3qtr

 

Wacom is releasing two stand alone 13″ tablets. Both will feature full HD displays with touch control, front and rear cameras, Wi-Fi and ship with the Wacom Pro Pen, giving you 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity.

The Companion runs Windows 8 and comes in two versions. The standard version gives you 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, whilst the Pro version comes with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The companion is definitely aimed at professional artists and allows for the installation of Adobe Creative Suite programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.

The Companion Hybrid works off Android and functions as a Cintiq tablet when connected to a computer or as an Android tablet when unplugged. It’s still got some fairly impressive technology inside it, running on Android 4.2  and housing an Nvidia Tegra 4 CPU. It comes in both 16GB and 32GB versions.

All three of these would be versatile tools for Fish Tank Creative. Having a tablet with high level sketching functionality would allow us to speed up the creative process when formulating concepts for our clients. It would also open up our ability to edit on the fly, making meetings more dynamic and intuitive. Being able to do some personal sketching whilst hanging out during lunch breaks in the parks and cafes of Chippendale wouldn’t go amiss either.

We’ll definitely be looking into the creative and productive possibilities that these three devices can provide when they release in the next few months.

joe2

I am the (new) Designer

It’s a boy!
Fish Tank Creative is happy to announce the addition of a new designer to the studio, Joe.
Joe comes to Fish Tank Creative having past experience studying at Shillington College, working as a designer in North Ryde and freelancing in both Australia and the UK. Joe has experience working across a wide range of design mediums and for both small businesses and large corporations. With strong conceptual and illustrative skills, as well as a… ‘diverse’… taste in music, Joe is a welcome addition to Fish Tank Creative’s already strong design team.

“Mee-gher” Street or “Marr” Street?

Trust me to find the perfect design studio on a street whose name needs to be spelled for people to get the spelling right. Fish Tank Creative is moving to 23 Meagher Street, Chippendale in the next week or so.

I was happy to call it “Mee-gher” Street, then a pal said her friend called it “Marr” Street. Then I googled it, and came across a zillion variations, from Gaelic people who had immigrated all over the world from Waterford, Ireland, and who chopped and changed their name pronunciations to suit.

I also found this explanation: “the original name was O’Meagher and when the immigrants arrived most dropped the O. In Galic the e and g are silent so the correct pronounciation is Ma Her.” This is a post by Irene Meagher, on one of the forums on www.ancestory.com

After reading several hundred posts, I think this is the way to go?

A New Studio For Fish Tank Creative

We are excited to announce that we are in the process of moving to another Studio!

This means we are closer to all our clients which is saving us and them time for meetings and a general visit.

We have been looking for the right spot… and finally it has come along, and it just happens to be in the Chippendale Creative Precinct!

So, the parking in Chippendale might be tight, but the coffee is to die for! Drink coffee at Brickfields now! The Sour dough is terrific too!

We are at 23 Meagher Street, Chippendale. Come by and say Hi!