PORTFOLIO — A

PROJECT INDEX:
NEVER
Volta
Grouch Hair
Soup Athletica
Sandy Creek Weekender
Mister Bianco
Smith St Bistrot
Numero Undici

NEVER is a Melbourne-based running apparel brand, capturing the cultural essence of Melbourne, and the edgy vibrancy of the running community.

The result is an identity that rests on a foundation of the chunky brand mark, referencing the urban environment of NEVER’s home town, running tread, and a logotype that can be used flexibly and expressively. This brutalist-leaning brand mark is softened by an expansive and vibrant colour palette that interprets athletics ribbons in the digital age, while typography remains pared back.

Motion is referenced throughout the visual language, through the use of pattern, repetition, and the arrangement of typography across multi-layered print and digital applications.

This visual approach was translated into NEVER’s debut cut-and-sew collection in April 2025, communicating a pure expression of the brand.

Volta is a brand of charging stations recently acquired by Treviso, Italy based start-up Tabo s.r.l. looking to grow from their existing regional presence and scale to national and European markets. To mark this acquisition, a new digital-first identity was established that would make Volta recognisable, authoritative, contemporary and attractive to a wide audience across B2B and B2C segments.

The result is a visual language that calls upon technology and progress through the use of pixelation and the technology behind the product itself. The colour palette is informed by Tabo’s existing palette while allowing Volta to stand on its own, and simple typography choices are used according to content.

This visual language is embellished with simple motion gestures to remain approachable, while more expressive uses of colour, scale and layout guide the more eye-catching outcomes targeted towards the B2C audience.

Grouch Hair is a salon located in the Melbourne neighbourhood of Collingwood. Given a small budget and a smaller time frame, Grouch Hair needed to capture the personality of the team of three, and stand out from its competition in a saturated market.

The result is a brand identity anchored to the mascot “Grouchy” – mirroring the grittiness of Collingwood, expressing the personality of the team, appealing to existing clients, and creating something memorable to capture the attention of a new audience. A vivid colour palette helps the salon stand out from its more minimal-leaning nearby competition, subtle cues flowing into the salon fit-out.

Key interests of football, hardcore music and DIY from team and clients alike are reflected in brand extensions for Grouch Hair – sticker packs, football jerseys produced with sportswear brand R.Sport, and merchandise that pays homage to bootleg t-shirts.

Soup Athletica was an Australian-based creative collective working at the intersection of cycling, tourism and lifestyle. Specialising in online publishing, co-branded collaborative projects, events, publications and apparel.

The 2021 brand refresh signaled the “Final Act” of the Soup-cinematic-universe, and channels the Viennesse Secession through intricate pattern work, curved lines to reference the natural world and physiological movement on the bike, and a strong, contrasting colour palette.

Conceptually, the positioning of the collective in this final act was an embrace of the arts and crafts movement and community building through widely collaborative projects, cycling events, art exhibitions, and by taking a hand-made driven approach to the design and production of technical and lifestyle apparel.

The Sandy Creek Weekender was the flagship summer event for Soup Athletica, held in a remote locality with a population of 179. Blurring the lines between a cycling, arts and cultural event, the “Weekender” turned the local memorial hall into a destination in it’s own right across two sold-out days.

The program included poetry recitals, a series of bike rides through the region, and group exhibition featuring photographic, video, audio and sculptural work by 22 artists from Australia and Europe. Curated supper, breakfast and lunch menus were cooked on-site, brought alive through hyper-local produce, sourced no more than 40km from the hall.

The exhibition identity celebrated the offering of art, food and activity. The palette referenced local sporting colours, and a simple use of grids were employed to create a broad suite of event collateral that was contemporary but importantly approachable for the local audience.

After 13 years of trade, Sicilian restaurant Mister Bianco moved to an expansive two-storey space in Kew, Melbourne. A complete overhaul of the restaurants identity signaled this new era, using the geographic and architectural context of the new site as a starting point. The direction given to Mills Gorman Architects was to take inspiration from railway stations built during the Italian rationalist movement, bringing to life three distinct spaces within the precinct – the restaurant Mister Bianco, cocktail bar Bianchetto, and dedicated events space named Sala.

Complementing the interiors is a brand identity drawing from Italian municipal signage, and carrying Dante’s Divine Comedy through colour and symbolism as a way to add embellishment and personality to each of the three spaces within the building. Continuing this approach, menus are presented as literary objects, billcards embrace and celebrate Italian culture by referncing vintage travel wallets, and illustrative campaign artwork draws from Italian futurist posters and advertising posters of the mid-twentieth century.

Smith St Bistrot is a high-end French restaurant in the heart of Collingwood, merging 1920s Parisian chic with one of Melbourne’s edgiest suburbs. The brand identity and creative direction bring together references of Art Nouveau and Gothic architecture of Paris, informing interior architects and industrial designers in the approach to designing and constructing the space – burgundy leather, vintage mirrors with hand painted text, and custom fabricated objects constructed of fluted glass and aged brass.

The wider identity and tone of voice leans in to a “laissez-faire” approach, bringing casual Parisian chic to the fore through a wine first, food later approach. Campaign and event artwork make use of snapshot film photography, archival video footage taken throughout France and simple illustrations, speaking to this casual-ness, and typical “northside” aesthetic.

Numero Undici was a single-edition, independent publication that was part cook book, part memoir, retracing my own life through the lens of my Nonna and Nonno’s home at 11 Trudewind Road.

Written following the loss of the last grandparent, it is filled with over fifty recipes, family photos and countless stories painting a picture of Italian migrant life in regional Australia.

Printed locally, and singer bound with pink thread, the design of this publication takes inspiration from heirloom family photo albums and cookbooks, chef’s journals, and Enzo Mari’s “Exploration of Drawing”. It’s presented in a physical form that is easy to read, and doesn’t occupy much space on the kitchen bench as you follow a recipe.