For a little ‘from the archives’ fun, I dipped into the darkest corner of the TimeZoneOne archive cupboard and pulled out ‘Idea Unique ARCHIVE ONE’ – circa May 1995. What interesting long forgotten work lays on this dusty little Kodak Writable CD with InfoGuard Protection? Well, I found a little piece of my childhood on there, in the form of some adverts for Linwood City Shopping Mall…

For those who didn’t grow up in Christchurch’s coolest suburb, Linwood City was an old mall that was renovated many times and renamed EastGate Mall, all that remains of the old mall now is the McDonald’s. I was there when that McDonald’s opened (I got a cheeseburger happy meal, the toy was baby kermit the frog riding a skateboard) and I had my 10th birthday party there and won the monthly birthday prize draw. I would’ve been about 12 when this advert was made, and I might’ve entered my mum in the competition if I wasn’t so busy playing Street Fighter II and Puzzle Bobble ‘fully hard out to the days’. My mum worked at the Post Bank and we used to go to Video Village and rent Sega Master System games and my sisters would get Benji and Care Bear movies and my best friend from primary school was banned for 2 years for stealing marbles from Whitcoull’s… and I was a little sad when they started tearing stuff down, like the big Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog characters on the roof, and changed the name to EastGate.

Anyway…

Sticking with the ‘old stuff’ theme… here’s something really old that’s less about me and more about the graphic design/advertising industry. Welcome to Adobe Illustrator 88….

David ‘Puzzle Bloggle’ McLeod

Known best for it’s Hobbits, New Zealand’s creative industry is an extremely diverse sector which currently contributes around 3.1% of the country’s GDP. Along with film making and screen production, industries include music, fashion, textiles, television, digital content and our favorite, design (to name a few).

NZ’s sporting achievements are well known worldwide and are backed up by a nation of new thinking and fresh ideas. An America’s Cup win in 1995 highlighted the country not only as a sporting nation but also as one of design and innovation with the revolutionary Virtual Eye 3D animated graphics that accompanied the television coverage. Over the years New Zealand has also become one of the world’s leading locations for super yacht construction, leading in naval architecture and interior design. Award winning vessels such as Fitzroy Yachts ‘ Salperton (which recently won Best Sailing Yacht in the 30-44 meter class at the World Super Yacht Awards ) have become the standard for high performance technology.

Captain Matt Sparrow

Today I prepare my first TimeZoneOne blog. On the same day in ’69 Neil Armstrong hopped out of the Eagle landing craft and became the first man to set foot on the moon. That was a bit cooler than blog writing.Cooler still is Virgin Galactic ‘s attempts to get us all up there (well, low orbit anyway), and this bold thinking is apparently being embraced by New Zealanders. According to Carolyn Wincer (head of astronaut sales for Virgin Galactic) ‘Along with the Republic of Ireland, we (New Zealand) have the highest proportion of Virgin Galactic astronauts per head of population in the world’ . Nice.

Bring on the TZ1 staff outing to low orbit…

Matt ‘Space Pom’ Herivel

This week is the 4th of July and for the New Zealanders among us who might not know much about this American holiday I have gathered a little information from the great Wikipedia (below). As for all you Americans ‘Happy Independence Day’ from all of us here in New Zealand.

4th of July:
In the United States, Independence Day (commonly known as the Fourth of July) is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, picnics, baseball games, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States, but is often also viewed as simply a summer festival, apart from its patriotic overtones.

And to get you in the spirit here is one of the better 4th of July fireworks displays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeFi3SDi_n8

Alaina

I’m one for a bit of history, so here goes some entercation on the origins of branding. 6000BC to be exact.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/23/scibrand123.xml

… and for something a little different, this image made me smile.

Alaina