It was, without doubt, the biggest year Koodoz had experienced to date and it came with a lot of ups and the obligatory sprinkling of downs.

All in all though, it was a fantastic year for the business, which saw a lot of growth through new project opportunities (with a workload to match). Subsequently this equalled an injected boost to our client base, which therefore required the need for new staff to join our team – welcome Rhett Luciani, our new Digital Designer. We also increased our presence at the attendance of several industry related conferences and meetings, which lead to the introduction of a bunch of local and international industry peers – all of which culminated into a very positive outcome for all of us at Koodoz Design.

In summary, here are some of our notable achievements for 2011:

Entering the Smartphone Development Market

In April, we launched (on behalf of our client) our very first iPhone app, called ‘Buy Aus Made’ (available via iTunes).

Although it required a steep learning curve for all of us, it was a really fun project to work on and ultimately gave us a good indication of what’s involved in offering this type of service for future clients. We’re currently in the process of developing a couple of other smartphone applications for ourselves, for public release, and we’re keeping an eye out for other potential ideas to work on.

Rubbing Shoulders

One of the many goals we set ourselves for the year (and for the foreseeable future), was to take a more active role in attending and participating in industry related events.

In June, we attended Future of Web Apps in Las Vegas. At this leading web-based conference, we got the chance to witness some fantastic speakers and meet with some of the web industry’s biggest Entrepreneurs, Angel Investors and Start-ups including Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg), Gary Vaynerchuck (of Jason Calacanis (Malhalo CEO, Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media), the super inspiring Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO) and Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO).

We also got the opportunity to meet with some other really great web designers, developers and start-up guys including Garrett Gee from Scan and the chaps from Cheeky Monkey Media in Canada – a quick shout out to Rick and Gene!!

Back at home in September, we also had the opportunity of attending Semi-Permanent Melbourne. One of Australia’s most prominent conferences for all kinds of creatives, we got to see some really inspiring talks from Ken Taylor (Illustrator), Patrick Clair (Motion Graphics), Benja Harney (Paper Engineer), Platon (Photographer) and Scott Dadich (Condé Nast).

We also had the opportunity to catch up with a few friends from the industry and hang out over dinner with some of the guys from August Creative – a great bunch of peeps!

Some of our other gatherings throughout the year included meet-ups with a select few of Melbourne’s talented design folk from Dribbble, plus some other dev get-togethers at Jelly, which was a great way to see how a lot of Melbourne’s web creatives work on a day to day basis. Some of the great spaces we got to check out included Native Digital’s and Carter Digital’s offices in Fitzroy, the recently opened York Butter Factory in the CBD and Inspire 9’s co-working space in Richmond. If all goes to plan, we should be up for hosting another one of the next meet-ups at our new Abbotsford office.

Permanent Residency for Daniel

Another exciting tidbit of news we received mid-way through the year, was the official granting of Daniel’s permanent residency application. By directly sponsoring Daniel, we were all given the fantastic news that he was able to carry on living and working in Australia on a permanent basis.

Looks like the Colombian is here to stay for a little while longer – which we’re all really stoked about!

AWIA Finalists

Possibly one of the most exciting bits of news for the year, was discovering that we had been shortlisted as Finalists for the AWIA Eastern Region of Australia eCommerce Website of the year for our work on Camp Luxe.

Super chuffed by the nomination, we took a short trip up to Sydney to partake in the awards ceremony and got to mingle with some of Australia’s best in the web design industry.

Sadly, we didn’t come away with the grand prize, however, we were acknowledged for our hard work and were more than happy with the result of being shortlisted as one of the three best Australian websites in our field and will definitely be having another crack next year!

Holy Side Projects, Batman!

Over the years we’ve brainstormed and gathered a lot of great ideas for online products and services. We’ve also managed to apply a lot of these (read: all of these) to a ‘To Do List’, where they have sat festering and collecting dust, never to see the light of the day.

In 2011, we decided to change this and make a conscious effort to take action. Utilising the talented skillsets that we have, it would be a great shame not to develop some of these ideas, for fun and potentially, for profit.

To get the ball rolling (no pun intended) we started our first project off by developing a fun homage to our favourite film and lorem ipsum, with the creation of LebowskiIpsum. We’ve also commenced the development of a Table Tennis Scoring App, which we hope to launch in early 2012. Visit playwiffwaff.com for more info.

From One Corner of Richmond to Another

Well, it came sooner than we expected, but we managed to outgrow the office in Cremorne. Which meant, we needed to find somewhere that could house our growth, plus the guys from Bugherd and suggestions, for the next few years. Taking the plunge, we found and leased a fantastic old red brick warehouse in the gentrifying suburb of Abbotsford (in between North Richmond and Collingwood).

At first glance, the building was literally a shell. A barebones, rundown old building. For us, it was like striking gold. The potential it presented to occupy and renovate was exactly what we were looking for. Since the beginning of December, we’ve been madly renovating the space to turn it into a beautiful, open plan office that can house up to 18 people or more.

Here’s a list of the hard work we’ve put in to improve the office space:

• re-painting all the doors and trimmings
• painting 2 walls white and distressing walls (this was a tricky method to master – I may even write a blog post about this)
• creating a 5m W x 1.5m H meeting room chalkboard wall
• building a 7m long bench as a standing work station area for up to 4 people
• hand sanding, staining and lacquering 14 desks
• bond-creting every inch of red brick wall to harden the brick and mortar and reduce dust
• grinding a bucket load of dyna-bolts off of the concrete floor
• diamond-grinding 140m sq of concrete (3 passes) and preparing (vacuuming, sweeping, washing, scrubbing, mopping & cleaning) the concrete floor for sealing (this was back breaking work!)
• applying 2 coats of polyurethane enamel floor sealer for an amazing polished concrete finish – and managing to get extremely high during the process
• rewiring the entire factory to accommodate 18 work stations (sitting and standing), a new kitchen area, meeting room with TV and server area
• a new security system installed
• new door locks and a new back door
• re-paint the bathroom, utility room and existing kitchen area – plus some bond-creting and plastering of holes and cracks – plus we hand-made some pine framed, opaque perspex window covers
• new hot water system installed
• installed new ceiling and insulation…

There’s still a few things we need to do, but this should allow us to work comfortably in the new space for the short-term and allow us t finesse the aesthetic details over time…

Some of the additional task we need to complete, include:

• expanding the kitchen area with a Kitchen bench for food preparation
• building a wall to separate the kitchen area from working area
• build another wall to enclose the server and printer area
• purchase a lounge suite for the meeting and TV area
• buy an assortment of indoor plants…

Far out! Frisbee

As it has now become a tradition, the challenge for Koodoz Design to create a unique Christmas gift for our clients had crept up on us again, and as usual, it has become and increasingly hard task – but we love it!

Over the last few years, we’ve put together some really fun and useful pressies for our clients, and this year was no exception.

With the intention of topping [last year's crowd favourite], we racked our noggins until we came up with an idea that was not only Koodoz ‘brandable’, but was also a great way to celebrate summer and the holiday season outdoors with friends and family. Based on this criteria, we chose the timeless and alway-fun, Frisbee. But not just any Frisbee… oh no, no, no! We went and sourced only the finest Frisbee that money could buy – the pro-grade 175g Ultimate Frisbee – direct from the USA. We then, naturally, made sure it was a red frisbee and designed a faux-brand called the ‘Koodoz Kollider’ – another tradition we’ve happily adopted – which was applied to all 100 discs.

To package the disc and ship them out, we sourced some 11″ white Pizza Boxes and bradded those too (screen-printed). Then bow-tied each box with red Koodoz ribbon and a personalised Marty McFly themed Christmas card to each of our clients, suppliers and supporters.

Based not he wonderful feedback we’ve received from our clients, this year’s gift has already proved to be a soaring success and we can personally vouch that the Kollider has been a blast to play with over the summer!!

As usual, the challenge now is to see what crazy idea we can come up with for next years gift. Stay tuned.

All in All

To conclude, 2011 was a fantastic year and 2012 is already setting up to deliver some amazing results. We’re already looking at an action-packed return to work in mid January and we’re all super excited about working from the new space. Overall, I’m very optimistic about what the rest of 2012 will bring us and I’m positive we’ll be able to take it all in our stride.

Let the fun begin!

I’ve seen underwater photography before, but not like this. The photography is a great insight into the world of surfing we rarely see.

Here’s a video of the shooting of the Underwater Project:

Shooting The Underwater Project from Mark Tipple on Vimeo.

And a selection of my fav pics to whet your appetite :

The Excitement/Nerves of starting a new job…

After months of looking for a new job and multiple interviews, finally you get that call you have been waiting for. You got the job and can start the following Monday! Ohh the joy… then, fast-forward to the night before you’re due to start, and ohh boy, the nerves!

Having recently completed a post-graduate multimedia course after work with the intention of moving into a slightly different and more exciting industry, then quitting my position as a support desk analyst to build my online portfolio, I was determined to get into the web design industry.

Those dreaded hours spent updating your resume and applying for job after job in the hope of getting a call back and an interview were my next big hurdle.

After a few initial interviews, many of which were a waste of time with either them being freelancers wanting you to do odd job here and there or otherwise poorly run companies that would just mass produce websites without paying too much attention to the actual product (design and functionality) they were selling.

Then I came across an ad for a position as a Junior Web Designer with Koodoz Design – just what I was looking for. As soon as I saw the ad and had a look at their website and the products they had produced, I knew this was the one I wanted! Then when I got the call to go for an interview – I was over the moon – and even more so when I actually got the call to say they’d like me to start the following week!

Then came the night before I was actually due to start. So overwhelming. My first paying job as a Web Designer. Will I be able to cut it? Will I fit in? What will the work environment be like? Will I meet their expectations? So many questions… Good luck getting a full night’s sleep!

And so it begins

The following day eventually came. I got to work. Was shown around. Given my desk and away I went. I was now settled in.

First day went pretty quickly actually. To start with I was given little bits and pieces to do just to get myself into the swing of things. The atmosphere in the office was pretty cool, it really didn’t (and still doesn’t) feel like work. It’s more like a place where a group of like-minded folk with similar interests (the love of creating beautiful, unique and functional websites) meet each day, to do what they do best.

As the weeks have rolled on, I’m definitely getting into the swing of things. The experience so far has been a real eye opener. The amount of things I have learnt in just a short space of time has really given me a different perspective on the industry. A very positive one!

What I have been impressed with so far is the way the crew at Koodoz Design go about creating websites for their customers. They essentially treat each website as if they were creating the site for themselves. The attention to details is impressive to say the least, and they will not be happy with the website until every little detail is correct. It is exactly the type of company I had been looking to work for – a boutique web design studio that does not mass produce websites using templates, but instead pays attention to the finer details to ensure each site is pixel perfect! Koodoz Design takes pride in what they create!

Industry and new technologies

In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve learnt a few industry tricks, as well as seen how designs are created from scratch. It is amazing to see the difference that can be made by subtle details – turning a visual concept into a website that looks professional! A good example of this is using gradients that are so slight in variance that it is hard to tell where the different colours/shades start and end. The ethos of ‘less is more’ is definitely practiced and used effectively at Koodoz Design.

Apart from being impressed by the design aspect of the work at Koodoz Design, I’ve also been impressed by the development side of the work they do. All code is clean, semantic and well structured with the latest technologies used, such as HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets). I have also been introduced to LESS, which extends CSS with dynamic behaviour such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. In my short time here so far my development skills have improved drastically. I’ve learnt to code in a more ordered and structured manner as well as improved my workflow techniques.

Continued development and the future

For me personally, one of the areas I need to work on is keeping up with the rest of the crew at Koodoz Design and their speed of production – but I’m positive this will come with lots of hands-on experience.

The time so far at Koodoz Design has been fantastic, and as mentioned, it does not feel like a job! I look forward to coming into the office knowing that I will be learning something new each day, and working on diverse and exciting projects.

Thanks to Duckyguy on Flickr for the awesome picture of Batman – out of his comfort zone.

What time of the year is it? Khristmas time!

As some of you may know, we recently relocated Koodoz HQ to the design hub of Richmond, Melbourne. Since settling in to the new office we’ve found ourselves flourishing in this incredible creative environment.

We love the energy of this great little area! Not only are we surrounded by like-minded creative types and boutique industries, but we also have a plethora of excellent eateries and coffee houses at our disposal for our morning caffeine hit. Yes, we have become self-confessed coffee snobs.

Speaking of coffee…

What better way to celebrate our ‘caw-fee’ snobbery then to spread our red-hot-love for the quintessential morning pick-me-up with a cafe style, environmentally friendly, re-usable coffee cup from Hookturn Industries. Like us, Hookturn Industries is a local company celebrating all things Melbourne and are committed to a sustainable future. To complement the festively red coffee cups, we also popped in a bag of freshly roasted Sensory Lab coffee from Melbourne’s coffee institution, St. ALi.

I think it’s fairly safe to say we’ve raised the bar (again) on our Christmas gift giving tradition :)

And finally, some housekeeping

We’ll be finishing up for the year at noon, Tuesday 21 December for a bit of R + R before re-opening on Monday 4 January.

Next year is going to be a big year for us. First on the agenda – world domination in the iPhone app development market!

Merry Christmas to you, your colleagues and your family from all of us here at team Koodoz.

See you all in 2011!

It’s time to say good bye to Oakleigh. Goodbye to the delicious souvlakis from Orexi. Goodbye to the Cranbourne / Pakenham line and goodbye to the groups of old Greek men, swinging their ‘worry beads’ and debating over coffee at 8:45 in the morning.

Yes, the time has come. We’ve out grown our humble Oakleigh office and it’s time to move on to greener pastures. Today is our final day at 55 Queens Avenue and over the weekend we will be uprooting and moving to the heart of Melbourne’s creative hub – Richmond. More specifically 96 Chestnut Street.

It’s safe to say that we’re undergoing a period of significant growth and now is the time for Koodoz to be where the action is! However the new address (and phone number: 03 9421 2291) will be the only change. Our aim still is, and always will be, to deliver high quality, innovative designs and develop amazing websites for our clients.

See you in Richmond!

P.S: Thank you to Chris Zissiadis, Mark Broadhead and Andrew J. Cosgriff for the excellent images of Richmond.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we had made up our minds on the client gift for two-double-o-nine that was gonna smash last year’s donut idea outta the park.

Well, after about 2 weeks of brewin’ down at the local Barleycorn Brewers, a week worth of ‘post-production’ and 2 days worth of trekking around Melbourne, we have finally, finished hand-delivering some very cool (literally on ice), custom made and designed beer to all of our wonderful clients!

Now, to make sure we were able to satisfy most people’s discerning palates, we decided to brew two different types of beers. The first was a ’standard issue’ Carlton Draught stunt double, which we dubbed the Koodoz Draught Koldie – The cure for climate change. The other was a ‘pseudo premium’ Stella Artois, which we named Kräutbrau – Premium Belgian lager. made with liebe :)

These two beautiful amber ales were lovingly hand-brewed, bottled and capped by us. We also custom designed the branded labels, applying each one individually (288 in total), as well as embellishing the sides of each 6-pack holder with a hand-cut stencil. We then went one step further and bow-tied a red satin ribbon with the Koodoz Design logo, around each 6-pack.

All in all, it was a really fun side project for us and I’m certain all of our clients will enjoy their chilled beverages over the summer break and festive season.

The only downside to all of this, is now we have to start thinking of something even better for next years gift – we’re 100% open to suggestions :)

Cue beer montage in 3, 2, 1…

Plain 6-pack holders were bloody hard to find, so if you’re looking to get some, get in touch with the guys over at Colna Print & Pak

Ribbon printed by the kind folks over at Australian Printed Ribbon

Beautiful, brown, boutique beer bottles brought to you by Barleycorn Brewers

Last year, for the festive season, we hand delivered dozens of fresh and tasty Koodoz themed donuts to all of our clients, as a way of saying thank you, for their continued business.

This year, we’ve thought long and hard about how we could raise the bar on 2008s well-received gift idea and after countless hours of brainstorming, internet searching and deliberation — we’ve finally decided and put the order through!

We’re pretty confident this idea will trump last year’s efforts and we’re sure our client’s will agree!

Stay tuned…

Adidas Celebrate Originality