Awards

On Friday 18 May 2007 at the Museums Australia Publication Design Awards, Meeting a Dream: Albert Tucker in Paris 1948-1952 won best catalogue with Living in landscape: Heide and houses by McGlashen and Everist a highly commended. Also receiving a highly commended was the Winter Garden Party invitation to launch the re-opening of Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Australian Creative 2007 Hotshop Awards
Best Emerging Designer of the Year
Kate Rogers, GollingsPidgeon

CREATIVE received many impressive entries to its Hotshop Award for ‘Best Emerging Designer’, so choosing only one winner was almost impossible. After much deliberation, the judges finally settled on Kate Rogers, a talented young designer at GollingsPidgeon in Melbourne.

In 2006, Rogers was the recipient of several AGDA awards, including a Judges Choice award, an Effectiveness award, two distinctions and two finalists. As the lead designer for the re-opening of Heide Museum of Modern Art, Rogers was responsible for compiling catalogues, signage, invitations, posters and brochures promoting the museum’s exhibitions in 2006. Throughout this work, Rogers displays an ability to produce stylish layouts that are consistently unique and inventive. She balances a knack for experimentation with an understanding of editorial design, so her layouts are fresh without being intimidating or illegible.

She combines striking imagery with cut-out typography and shapes, which adds a tactility to the brochure covers. “For me, design is a continual process of learning, understanding and interpreting. With each project I look to explore possibilities and further my knowledge and craft,” says Rogers. “I understand the commercial nature of the work that I do, and work with my fellow staff, clients and suppliers to achieve the best possible outcomes. Most of all I design because of the enjoyment that it brings me.”

Excerpt from CREATIVE magazine February March issue 2007

By producing design that is confident, intelligent, subtle and beautiful, GollingsPidgeon is once again a winner in the CREATIVE Hotshop Awards.

Melbourne studio GollingsPidgeon is well known for producing beautifully executed, well thought-out design. Its submission to this year’s Hotshop Awards attracted similar comment from our judging panel, putting them in third place.

Work included a strong selection of projects done for the Heide Museum of Modern Art ranging from identity to print, promotional retail pieces (tea towels and aprons), catalogues and naming rights signage. There were also projects for Spicers Paper, a self-initiated project by David Pidgeon exploring three dimensional type, and Federation Square’s Summer campaign.

“I can’t quite put my finger on it but the vision of David Pidgeon and John Gollings combine to produce work that satisfies the eye and the mind,” was one of the judge’s verdicts. “The subtlety in the work allows human warmth to resonate and with this a confidence and understanding of what they’re doing.” It is no surprise that the work is “visually compelling and arresting” as one judge said, and “always intelligent and beautiful”, said another.

David Pidgeon’s role as president and national representative of AGDA Victoria (elected 2005) proactively demonstrates the studio’s commitment to the creative industry. In 2006 the AGDA Victorian Student Council was re-established, made up of 20 students across 11 institutions, with one student member responsible for reporting back to the state council. The initiative drove student membership up by 28%. Pidgeon’s role with AGDA has also culminated in its partnership with AGIdeas. Of note too is Pidgeon’s recent induction into AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale), an elite club uniting the world’s leading graphic designers and artists.

On Saturday 28 October 2006, the 8th Australian Graphic Design Association National Awards were held at Parliament House in Canberra. The awards attracted over 2700 entries with the studio winning 15 awards, including one Judges’ Choice award for design effectiveness, 10 Distinctions and 4 Finalist awards.

Business arts partnership prove valuable to SME’s
26 October 2006

A partnership between a small Melbourne graphic design and photography studio, GollingsPidgeon, and one of Australia’s leading contemporary art museums, Heide Museum of Modern Art, has shown that sponsorship of the arts is not just the domain of giant, deep-pocketed corporations.

Increasingly, Small to Medium Enterprise are turning to the arts as an innovative way to promote their products and services, which in turn has helped many arts organizations. Evidence of this trend was the 200 per cent increase in entries for the Sensis SME category in the annual Australia Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) awards this year.

The AbaF Awards recognize Australia’s most successful business-arts partnerships. The Sensis SME Award was awarded to GollingsPidgeon graphic design studio and the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne last night. GollingsPidgeon has provided contra graphic design and photography services to Heide since 2003, which enabled the Museum to establish a strong new identity for its expansion and reopening in 2006.

Director of the Heide Museum, Ms Lesley Always, said the award winning Heide identity had captured the attention of existing and potential donors. In one case, an individual donor pledged $100,000 after seeing a Heide publication.

“The partnership has been a driving force behind an increase in philanthropic support and attendance figures. The number of donors has increased 50 per cent in three years and we exceeded our annual attendance target of 30,000 by 58 per cent last year,” she said.

GollingsPidgeon CEO, David Pidgeon, said the company had won significant new business thanks to the partnership with Heide.

“We estimate that 50 per cent of all our new business comes through clients who are aware of the work we did with Heide and want us to replicate that work with them. Additionally, 80 per cent of our publicity has involved the Heide brand and since the beginning of the partnership the number our work program has increased by 140 per cent.”

“The awards bestowed on us from national peak bodies have also been a direct result of the work we have done with Heide.”

The Heide Museum was founded in 1981 and is one of the largest modern art Museums in Australia, holding a collection of more than 4000 artworks. GollingsPidgeon is a multi-disciplinary Melbourne based graphic design studio, founded by architectural photographer, John Gollings, and graphic designer David Pidgeon.