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!

I just have to tell the world about these amazing posters I bought a couple of days ago. I found them via one of my fav haunts for cool stuff.

After doing an extensive amount of travel through the US of A over the years, I’ve always had a soft spot for some of their well known cities. So when I saw these very cool screenprints that illustrate the main suburbs of metropolitan America in type, I just had to get me some.

To brighten up the empty walls of our office, I bought myself three posters from Ork, one of the city that never sleeps – New York City – which has been screen printed with silver ink (two hits) on black 30% recycled paper by Wausau Paper (Eclipse Black). Another of Boston – a gorgeous city – which, naturally, came printed with white ink on green 100% recycled paper by French Paper Co.. And my third choice and favourite city of them all – San Francisco – which, fittingly, came beautifully printed in dark grey ink on a golden yellow 30% recycled stock by Wausau Paper which, in my eyes, perfectly represents the city (Think golden gate. Think gold rush. Think 49ers).

Since receiving them in the post (super quick delivery, too) I’ve had them professionally framed within a contemporary black frame and lots of ivory coloured matt board surrounding the print and they now hang proudly on my once blank-walls, looking very kick-ass!

There are a stack of other major US cities to chose from (14 in total), in a variety of stocks and colours on the Ork Posters website. Regrettably, they don’t have any other cities from around the world, which is a bit of a shame, but hopefully the popularity of these designs will increase the demand for other places of interest. I would definitely pay good money for one of Melbourne and it’s inner city suburbs… in fact, if anyone at Ork reads this, I hereby offer my professional design services and knowledge of Melbourne to collaborate with you guys!

If you like typography and have a thing for Americana – you should definitely treat yourself to some of these unique prints!

I have to admit, I feel like I’ve been living under a very large suburban rock. I mean, how on earth have I managed to miss all of the buzz and hype surrounding this fantastically enigmatic band that derive from my own hometown?

Sadly, I’ve been so slow off the mark in discovering this band, that I think Nova FM has beat me to it. Oh dear. I really do need to pick up the slack.

I guess I’ve been relying on the Internet for all my new music/media needs for so long – it seems I’ve forgotten that I live in one of the coolest and most accessible cities in the world to discover new music. A city so rife with live music, it is literally oozing out of every nook, cranny and cobble stoned alleyway. Thankfully, The Temper Trap have single handedly convinced me that I need to brave the remainder of this bitterly cold winter and get out more. Summer music festivals… Look out!

Okay, lame suburbanite rant over. On to the music.

If I had to wrap this album up in one word, ‘solid’ would be the word of choice. From beginning to end, Conditions offers a perfect blend of indie-rock and dare I say it, radio friendly pop. Lead singer, Dougy Mandagi’s incredibly engaging falsetto (Track #8’s ‘Resurrection’ sounds uncannily like Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters), combined with atmospheric guitar riffs and subtle hints of Bloc Party-esque drum beats are the perfect ingredients for what will undoubtedly propel this young band into almost instant stardom.

For me the stand out tracks on the album include Rest, Sweet Disposition, Soldier On and Science of Fear. Take a look at the guys performing Sweet Disposition live at St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival earlier this year:

Track List:

1. Love Lost
2. Rest
3. Sweet Disposition
4. Down River
5. Soldier On
6. Fader
7. Fools
8. Resurrection
9. Science Of Fear
10. Drum Song

To find out more about the band visit their official website or head over to their MySpace page to hear more of their fantastic music.

Hot off the press. Melbourne City Council has just unveiled their new $240,000 logo. The newly launched brand, developed by Landor to replace the previously dated design from the 90s follows in the footsteps of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre’s logo.

Already described as an incarnation of MTV by Monash University’s Francis Farrelly, this new logo presents itself as a prism-esque monogram of the letter ‘M’ with sharp, shard like edges creating a striking 3-dimensional effect.

At first glance, I was a little unsure if I liked it, as it does come across as ‘over-futurized’ and potentially, trying too hard to look like something from the year 3000. Not to mention the miniature rave dance party that’s going off in the top left corner.

However, after studying the logo for more than a nano second, I think the new logo has been well executed with a great style system/colour palette that would roll out nicely on Melbourne City’s streets, ultimately complementing some of the more modern architecture (Federation Square, Southern Cross Station and Olympic Park’s Rectangular Stadium) that have been constructed in recent years.

In all honesty, this logo is already growing on me and I think the new look strikes the right balance to complement the modern and energetic vibe that this glorious city offers. In fact, I’m quietly confident that this rebranding will hold it’s own for (at least) another decade.

As with anything that promotes change, I’m sure this logo, like the 2012 London Olympics logo will create a bit of a stir (although, maybe not as big) so it would be interesting to see what thoughts other folks have on the new ‘Big M’.