Like many Christchurch dwellers, I’m finding it hard to comprehend the scale of what we are facing in the weeks to come. This afternoon’s shock is the demolition of the New Zealand Express Company Limited building, a really beautiful building on Manchester Street that I have always admired but until today never knew the history of. Now that I have learnt some of its history, its demise is even more distressing.
“New Zealand Express Company Limited, a furniture despatch business, had formerly occupied a small office in Bedford Row. When this seven-storey building was erected it became an indication of the prosperity and growth in the business community in Christchurch. Designed by the Luttrell Brothers, the building was the tallest in New Zealand at the time.”
I’m not ashamed to say this brought tears to my eyes – I hope that once Christchurch has recovered from the initial shock of Saturday’s earthquake, we can recapture the hope and pride that creates a building like this, beautiful and symbolic of success.
Following Saturday’s earthquake we were finally able to get into Bedford Row on foot yesterday (with army escort!) and see how our building had fared. The news is better than we expected – the building looks virtually untouched, with the exception of one large crack in the facade above the double doors (not visible in the photo above), resulting in a yellow sticker. This means we have restricted access – at this stage we are able to enter the premises (at our own risk) to retrieve business essentials, but we won’t be able to work from our office until it has been assessed further. Which is fine by us – after last night’s encore performance of magnitude 5.0 aftershocks we are quite happy to continue working off site!
Inside, our office looks almost just as we left it on Friday – the only evidence of an earthquake was a few open drawers. We were expecting at the very least to have a fair amount of broken glass to clear up in the kitchen, but every single glass was still intact on our rickety old kitchen shelves! We have been very, very lucky.
Next door is a different story – they have a red sticker, meaning it’s a no-go area. It appears to be due to a collapsed interior wall. Although it seems bad, a red sticker doesn’t necessarily mean the building is condemned, so we are keeping fingers crossed for our neighbours and for us, as their building is attached to ours.
We would like to reassure our clients that their files are all safe and backed up off site. Mel and I are both available and can be reached by email or on our mobiles – you can find all our contact details by clicking the contact link above. We are currently waiting for the second assessment of 16 Bedford Row and will keep you posted!
Christchurch was hit by a large earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) early on Saturday morning. Mel and I are both safe and well, but as the central city is still cordoned off, we haven’t been able to get into Board of Design. We are working off-site today and can be reached by email or on 021 2525 789 for urgent enquiries. We will update here as we find out more.
Board of Design is pleased as punch to be involved in the inaugural TEDxChch. If you’re not familiar with TED, prepare to have your mind blown. It started in California in 1984 as a four day conference bringing together thinkers and doers from the fields of technology, entertainment and design, and has grown to become an incredible repository of free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers. Every TED Talk is recorded and archived on TED.com – a website on which you can easily sink a few hours at a time absorbing 18 minute capsules of inspiration and ideas.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created an initiative called TEDx, a programme of local, self-organised events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, and luckily for us Christchurch dwellers, Kaila and Jess from The Missing Link are making it happen here with the very first TEDxChch.
The idea of all TED and TEDx events is for you to be inspired as much by your fellow audience as you are by the speakers. TEDxChCh attendees are intellectually curious, excited by possibility, creative, and passionate about spreading great ideas – sound like you? Find out more on the TEDxChch website.
As a taste of the TED experience, here’s my all time favourite TED Talk – Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity.
Board of Design is proud to introduce the Fourth Edition of the Arts Participation Guide, which hit the streets in Christchurch this week! We designed this for the CCAC (Christchurch Community Arts Council), whose aim is to encourage and promote the practice, appreciation and enjoyment of all forms of artistic activity in Christchurch. The guide is a compilation of individual listings from the website and encompasses a range of artistic genres from craft and visual arts, through to organisations and venues.
With a substantial print run of 17,000 we wanted to make the guide visually interesting with bright, vibrant colours and circular images, giving the guide a fresh and contemporary feel, to help increase the CCAC’s public visibility in Christchurch.
If you missed on getting into the guide this time around, head on over to artschristchurch.org.nz to register online (it’s free!). Alternatively you can call the CCAC manager on 03 379 4287 and don’t forget to become a fan on their Facebook page too for regular updates!
We’re pretty proud of the results of our latest branding project. A Craft Affair is the biggest handmade shopping event on the Christchurch calendar, with more than 40 stalls featuring the best and brightest of the local craft scene, so the posters and marketing needed to reflect passion and quality, with a handmade flavour. And of course it’s nice to have a subtle hint of Kiwiana in there too.
Naturally Mel will be there with her Black Swan Designs hat on, selling some of her fabulous jewellery (pictured below) and I’ll be there promoting Felt. It’ll be a great day out – hope you can make it along!
We’ve moved! As of Monday we are now at 16 Bedford Row. We had been in New Regent Street for 7 years and we’re really going to miss it, but our wee studio was getting kind of full! Our new office has heaps more space so we can spread out a bit which will allow us to run a more efficient operation. Stop by for a VIP tour – we’d love to show you around.
Saturday was a very special day for Board of Design, our seventh birthday!! We treated ourselves to cupcakes (which were enjoyed in the company of former Board Member Katie and Punky the rabbit) and a new website! Thanks to everyone for their support over the years, here’s to another exciting seven years in business!
Lucy and I spent the weekend up in Wellington for the NZ Arts Festival, in particular Neil Gaiman’s Town Hall Talk, as part of the Writers Week festivities. NZ Post, one of the festival sponsors, installed “inspiring words” in several locations around the city, some as giant installations (as pictured below on the side of the lovely Swonderful shop) and others at typical fridge magnet size, where the public could unleash their creativity and cross their fingers that the infamous Wellington winds didn’t whip them from their magnetic perch!
Word sets were also given away as part of the marketing, for creative types (such as ourselves) to try their hand at poetry, which is precisely what we did over a spot of breakfast…
And of course, my currently-most-coveted-possesion, “The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish” inscribed by Neil with “best fishes”! Neil was signing books for a total of three hours (!!!) after his talk, not wanting to disappoint a single fan… Legend.
After winning the Supreme Award last year for our Antique Print Gallery window display, as part of the Christchurch Ellersie Flower Show, we were quite excited about putting together another display. This year we decided to fill the window with little butterflies, all hand cut from off cuts of Antique prints, which we complimented with prints and greeting cards from the Buller’s New Zeland birds series.
Alas, we didn’t win the competition again this year again (perhaps it would have been a bit greedy to win two years running anyway), but were bestowed with the Silver award for Best Retailer! We were nevertheless chuffed, and have had many a passerby stop in to comment on our handiwork.
