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Studio Binocular Showreel

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:50:54 +0000

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Our New Showreel

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:45:17 +0000

Good news: we’ve just popped the finishing touches on our showreel…

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Cashing in on the Iron Lady

admin — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:51:32 +0000

In honour of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral today, we thought we’d share one of Studio Binocular’s favourite figurines: our Margaret Thatcher nut cracker.

All you have to do is pop a walnut up the Iron Lady’s skirt and – hey presto – the nut is cracked. This excellent gift (thanks Ben) also came in a fantastic box, with Maggie popping her eyes out of number 10 Downing Street.

Anyway, all of this sentimental nut cracking got us thinking about what other Thatcher memorabilia might be fetching a pretty penny on ebay. We did a quick search and found that $1,000 can score you an autographed, leather bound copy of “Path to Power”, whilst an autographed copy of her memoir “The Downing Street Years” will set you back $9,000…luckily for us we scored a copy of this in an op-shop last year whilst she was still alive. As you can see from the price on her head, we picked it up for the now bargain basement price of $4.99.

Not to worry if memoirs aren’t your thing – you could always pick up a Margaret Thatcher Thimble, or – better yet – a set of these enviable slippers:

In our searching we also stumbled across Jason Cullen – an avid collector from Leeds whose haul of memorabilia is now worth over £100,000. Jason claims to have the world’s largest collection of Margaret Thatcher autographs, and – looking at this image – it’s hard to dispute that this man is a world leader in his own right.

Word on the street is that novelty dolls and toys go up around 20-30% when someone dies. The Daily Mail interviewed an internet entrepreneur from Warwick – Gavin Hodge – who noted that the same thing happens when any artist dies, and that “as a champion of the free market, Maggie probably would have approved’.

Needless to say though – while it is no Mona Lisa – our novelty nut cracker is not for sale.

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Fauxtography Strikes Again!

admin — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:30:33 +0000

In an exciting development, two of our favourite topics – photoshop trickery and North Korea – have made it into the one news story! Apparently North Korea’s official news agency has been making mischief again, this time retouching battleships into a military exercise to give the impression that they’re badder than they really are. This is in contrast to the usual purpose of photoshop – which is generally employed to make people look better than they really are.

In celebration of Kim Jong-un’s clumsy clone-tool antics, we thought we’d compile a list of our other favourite photo fakes. Indeed, while North Korea’s recent retouch is a long way from the dizzying heights of women’s-interest-magazines and the big bad world of celebrity skin tones, it does demonstrate progress from the original “Political Fauxtography” days of Stalinist Russia.

Spot the difference with these images which have tried to re-write history…

Trotsky who?

Sometimes killing people or sending them to Siberia just isn’t enough. Stalin was one of the early pioneers of removing people he no longer liked from images – a technique which has regained popularity recently on dating sites…where the ‘crop’ and ‘airbrush’ tools are often used to remove a former partner, a creepy relative or a better-looking-best-friend from images.

Goebbels be gone:

Who wants a nice day out in the garden with Adolf to be ruined by Goebbels?

Horse handlers are for pansies:

Rounding out the three bad boys of World War II, Mussolini didn’t want to give the impression that he needed someone to hold his horse while he acted heroic.

Tea cups are also for pansies:

Pakistan’s ‘Press Information Department’ obviously determined it is more appealing to be standing with your fingers pointing together awkwardly than to be talking to your generals whilst drinking a cup of tea. Oh so natural.

Two women too many:

In a cabinet of 32 ministers, you would have thought that the problem would have been that there were only two women. Apparently not, with Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver being retouched out of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet team by the Israeli newspaper Yated Neeman…

Affirmative action at the University of Wisconsin:

Why bother giving actual places to african-american students when you can just retouch one in?

Weekend at Kim Jong Il’s:

More trickery from North Korea, where Kim Jong Il’s keepers seemed to take the ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ approach to his last few months. While there were many highlights, this image in particular attracted attention for its poor attention to detail with lighting and its lack of background consistency. Perhaps if they lifted some of their internet censorship, their retouchers may have access to some more sophisticated photoshop tutorials online…

Like all good news bulletins, we’ll round it out with a feel-good cat story:

After all, who could forget Snowball – one of the pioneering viral images of the early 2000s. This monster cat featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Good Morning America before his owner came forward to explain that he’d made the image of the cat as a joke to send to friends. Nonetheless, the picture did make the owner – Cordell Hauglie – a cult celebrity in the cat community, and he now appears at cat shows as a ‘celebrity guest’.

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Now Hiring: Senior Designer

admin — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:33:02 +0000

Studio Binocular is seeking an experienced and talented Senior Designer to join our award-winning team.

We work across a wide range of sectors and disciplines – offering variety and the opportunity to work across multiple platforms, including print, online and signage projects. We’re currently looking for a strong and conceptually driven senior designer to play a leadership role in both the creative output of the studio and the growth of the business.

Experience required:

» 5+ years of design studio experience working on branding, print and online projects
» A vision for the bigger picture, balanced by a good eye for detail and accuracy
» Strong folio of work demonstrating strategic and conceptual thinking
» Proven capacity to develop creative concepts and follow them through to final implementation
» Experienced and articulate, both in presenting work to clients and in developing written rationales for strategy and creative concepts
» Ability to work both autonomously and within a team
» The ability to provide leadership for junior and mid-weight design staff
» Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage deadlines
» Experience in managing multiple projects at once
» Talented, driven and willing to contribute to all areas of the studio

To apply for the position please email your folio and CV using the contact form on our website.

Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be notified.

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New rebrand for WattElse Solar

admin — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 03:27:26 +0000

We’ve just finished re-branding WattElse Solar – with a fun and witty new language which shines all over their competitors…

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RMIT University: Airshow

admin — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:25:50 +0000

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Monash University

admin — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:16:49 +0000

Monash Arts and Monash Berwick course guides:

Monash Gippsland Prospectus:

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Springvale Wayfinding Signage

admin — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 07:00:01 +0000

Icon Library:

3D Heads Up Mapping:

Precinct Mapping:

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Jail time for misuse of Photoshop

admin — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:47:40 +0000

We were both shocked and enthralled to read the following headline in The Age on Friday:
“Sydney conman who photoshopped pictures of himself with famous people gets 12 years jail”

Apparently this character swindled investors out of $8 million large by retouching himself into images with the Queen, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, John Howard and – you guessed it, Sophie Monk! You can see some of his handiwork below. Perhaps when he is eligible for parole he might be able to organise a role using the liquify tool on celebrity skin tones with Anna and Grace at American Vogue…

Images from original The Age article: view online here »

Needless to say, the article did set off some alarm bells for us, as this has long been a technique we’ve used to show that we have friends in high places:

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