We keep thinking these are on our site but they’re not and they’re such great reference and such brilliant work.  The first is the Softlites clip by Jonathan and Kris Moyes.  The second is Jonathan’s collaboration with Collider, The Presets and BMW.  There should definitely be more of this gratuitously creative viral work around!

Neither are new but they really need to be seen by a massive audience (our blog readers – hello all 16 of you!)

I have decided to really embrace the changes of the future.  I’m hearing the cry ‘print is dead! long live the internet!’  I’ve been working on a project with Damien Aistrope and far from irritating me, the process has inspired me to represent him!  He’s so incredibly easy to work with and he contributes so much, that I want to introduce him to the rest of the world.  He’s also a kindred spirit who is doing his thing without the dangling mortgage sword over his head.  He got smart like me and bought at country prices.  He lives in Cairns with his wife and twin boys.  I want to stress that Damien is lay-person friendly.  So I thought the best way to introduce his work would be to print the questions that I have been asking him for the past few weeks.

Who are you?

My name is Damien Aistrope. I’m a digital designer and developer working from Cairns in Far North Queensland. I studied B of Design at UWS Nepean and have now been working professionally within the realm of the internet for almost 12 years. I have been working freelance for the last 3 years but prior to this I co-owned a digital agency by the name of Fluoro in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia.

I’ve been featured in magazines such as Australian Creative, Dazed and Confused and Yen and my work has been written about by various online magazines such as Design is Kinky, Josh Spears, Slam X Hype, K10K, Surfstation, Hypebeast, Sneaker Freaker and Styleboost.  I am also a member of Australian Infront and have been a contributing editor for over 6 years. It is a fantastic community of Australian designers, artists and developers and it’s an honour to showcase the best of Australian made work to an international audience.

Within the last 2 years I have also been working under the name of Expo with my business partner Zann St Pierre. Zann is strictly a backend developer, this has allowed us to take on more work and also focus on the bigger jobs that are out there.

Over the last 3 years I have also undertaken a variety of side projects, being 2×4 and We’re.  2×4 is an artist invitation t-shirt label by which I invite 4 artists from around the globe to contribute 2 designs each to the season. The first range was incredibly successful and was stocked at exclusive boutiques around Australia and also picked up by Collette in Paris and Beams T in Japan.  We’re is an online store and retail space in Cairns, focused on high-quality fashion and designed pieces. We believe in improving accessibility to quality, designed pieces and supporting the designers who create them. I have been running We’re with my wife since 2008.

How did you start out?

My first real job was for XYZ networks working exclusively on Channel [V] and what was then called MusicMAX as a web designer. Due to the small nature of the studio at the time I also got exposure to broadcast design and working in motion graphics. Since then I have also worked at respected Sydney based digital agencies Amnesia and Hyro as a designer prior to starting Fluoro in 2003.

Tell me about Fluoro

In 2003 I co-founded digital agency Fluoro, taking it from a bedroom operation to one of Australia’s most respected sources of creative output in under three years with a team of ten people under our wing. Fluoro’s client’s in this time included Ministry of Sound, Austereo, News Magazines, EA Games, Atari and Philip Morris. In 2006 I was able to sell my share of the company to Hyro Group which continued to trade for another 2 years after I left.

Who have you worked for?  Tell me about the behemoths and the indies.

SonyBMG, Last.fm, MTV, Havaianas, Fox Sports, MySpace, Steggles, General Pants, Carhartt, Rittenhouse, Alice McCall, Mambo, Perks and Mini, Good Vibrations, Jam, Deus Ex Machina, Monster Children, Lee Jeans, One Teaspoon, Merivale Group.

Can you give me some links of sites you’ve built?
http://www.banditfm.com
http://www.monsterchildren.com
http://www.jammusic.com.au
http://www.supplystore.com.au
http://www.oneteaspoon.com.au
http://www.deucedesign.com.au
http://www.wearewere.com
http://www.joshpetherick.com
http://www.cathieglassby.com
http://www.davidmckaydesign.com
http://www.havaianas.com.au
http://www.kidostore.com
http://www.rittenhouse.com.au
http://www.plus61book.com
http://www.topcreative.com.au
http://www.turnerassociates.com.au
http://www.lyg.net.au
http://www.alicemccall.comhttp://www.turnerassociates.com.au
http://www.garyheery.comhttp://www.turnerassociates.com.au
http://www.orderandprogress.com.au

What do you offer?

Creative direction, design, concept building, strategy, development (front and back end), web based applications, online marketing, ecommerce, search engine optimisation, project management and consultation.

Languages / development I specalise in are XHTML, CSS, JS, Ajax and PHP. Frameworks I build with include Code Ignitor, Ruby and Zend. I build to WC3 web standards and am a strong believer in accessibility online.

Applications for design include Illustrator and Photoshop. I usually code by hand, I’m OG like that.

What’s the difference between using you and using a big digital agency?

Personalised service, flexibility, full understanding of how the design may affect the build and vice versa, I’m cheaper, you talk to the people making your project and don’t get swamped by account managers/project managers who really don’t understand what is required to make your project a reality.

What’s your work philosophy and how does that benefit clients?

I believe my work is simple to use (both front and back end), fun to interact with, engages the target audience / community at large and is a pleasure to look at without the unnecessary fuss.

More and more of my work is becoming about providing solutions to enrich another business, not just a information based website. This could be an ecommerce solution that provides a new revenue stream or a web based application that simplifies an otherwise difficult process into a simple one.

My keeping my approach simple, clients can understand what I am going to do for them without being bombarded with technical jargon and can clearly see how their users will benefit. From a user perspective the simplicity of my work ensures that they can get to what they want, quickly and easily, making the experience a positive one.