Tag: inspiration

We Can Create 2011 – Day 1 / Storify

Hosted by The Church, and spread over the 26th and 27th of August, We Can Create is New Zealand’s biggest art and creative industries showcase. This story takes a look at the lineup and catches the response from the crowd on the day.

Read the full story on Storify.

I’ve been experimenting with Storify. I like the idea that it lets you curate and capture information from around the “social web” to form something a little more cohesive. They even stretch so far as to call it a Story.

If you’ve been watching your dashboard avidly, you may have seen this story show as a post here. Storify has a feature which lets you export your story to your Tumblr blog. It’s about half way there – the initial push is great, but if you try to edit it on Tumblr as I did, it all turns to custard.

For the post to be a fair one on Tumblr, I needed to be able to add a break and “read more” link – because it really is very long. I added some tags too, and saved. But this completely ruined the formatting of the post, so I deleted it.

The story basically gives a rough outline of We Can Create, Day 1 – with a particular focus on content generated under the #WeCanCreate hashtag. It was an interesting excercise. The process was pretty simple, and the Storify facility easy to use – this story took two uninterrupted hours to put together.

We Can Create?


What: New Zealand’s biggest art and creative industries showcase.
When: 26-27 August 2011 
Where: Aotea Centre, Auckland

This Friday and Saturday I, and hundreds of other creative types, will be merrily making my way to the Aotea Centre for We Can Create.

Essentially, it’s a conference, run by The Church – who have brought the international creative showcase, Semi-Permanent, to New Zealand for the last seven years. This year, they are steering the ship their own way under the “WCC” banner.

My Picks for We Can Create 2011:

Sara Blake – Zho (New York)

Sara Blake - From "The Birds"

This producer of pretty combines traditional art with digital to create beautiful illustrations. Her unique style is influenced by sources such as fashion, music, nature and tattoo design, and I think she’ll be a hit with any fans of Audrey Kawasaki out there.

Extra for experts: Sara is having a mini exhibition as a We Can Create side event. 
Tuesday 23 August, 5 -7pm, (that’s tomorrow!)
Alleluya Bar & Cafe, St Kevins Arcade, 
183 Karangahape Rd, Auckland 

Kris Sowersby – Klim Type Foundry (Wellington)

From one of Kris's Sketchbooks

Whanganui School of Design-trained Kris Sowersby has picked up an enviable collection of Certificates of Excellence from The Type Designer’s Club in New York.

His excellent eye for the movement and flow of characters within a typeface has culminated in a series of beautiful, historically informed typefaces for Klim Type Foundry – founded by himself in 2005.

One thing I’ve always admired about Kris is his openness in sharing his creative process and the construction behind his work. On the Klim website, you can find scans of his sketchbooks showing the thought behind typefaces and some of the commercial lettering and logotypes also visible in their finished form.

Extra for experts: This article written by Kris for I Love Typography, Newzald: From Moleskine to Market details the creation of Newzald, from inspiration through to the end result and even naming the typeface.

This is a fascinating article for the type-obsessed or even the lower-key type fan. Excellent prep for his opening presentation this Friday.

Honorable Mentions

I’m also looking forward to seeing presentations from:

Rafaël Rozendaal (Brazil), for whom “the internet is his canvas” – I don’t know much about this guy, but his presentation could be dazzling or painful. Definitely keen to find out.

Patrick Reynolds (New Zealand), photography! I’m sold!

Frank Kozik (San Francisco), I would dearly love to hear him explore his work in “reviving the lost art of the concert poster”, but somehow I think we’ll be hearing about vinyl toys. Nothing wrong with that either!

TL, DR

For those of you who may have thought this post was too long, but DID read, gold star and kitten hugs to you!

If you still haven’t pounced on a ticket to We Can Create, drop me a Tumblr message or an email (anthea.whittle@gmail.com) to find out how you can get a wee discount on your ticket. I’d love to see you there!


My Friday night was spent folded on the floor with Pamela, knitting our little fingers sore on pointy 3mm needles.

Someone from work asked me to make her a tadpole with fangs, and Pamela made a little bunny for her little girl, Mika. These creatures are so cute!

My workmate wanted to pay me for my efforts, which is nice – I spent more than the profit on more wool and bits to make more things. Fun! I’ve had a few people encourage me to sell them, but they take about three hours to make so really if I was to cover time and materials, they would be pretty costly. The tadpole’s adoption fee is $25, my first real commission!