Award of Merit:

Ellis Jones for Worth Holding Onto

Change happens when emotions or ideas are understood and shared. We help business, government and cultural organisations understand audiences, make places, tell stories, sell products, move people and change the world for good. How? By recognising and employing the power of design to impact human behaviour. Our practice mission is 'Design for good'. To use the conceptual, verbal and visual tools at our disposal to move people, create positive social impact and, as a result improve, our world. Led by our design tenets, we self-assess and continuously improve our skills, processes and output. The Ellis Jones design studio aspires to lead the discussion on what it means to practice intelligent, sustainable and accessible design today. And for our work and culture to draw the best and brightest young designers to our door. 

Our practice is strongly connected to the advancement of the profession, with multiple team members involved with peak bodies (AGDA), mentoring, thinking and publishing writing on contemporary issues with design.

Practice leader David Constantine has been a state president and national board member of AGDA, has taught at undergraduate level in design, organised and executed industry forums and events. He is a guest speaker on human and insights based design process for ADR, MPavillion and others, is awarded and published internationally. 

The Ellis Jones Design Studio is one vertical within the wider multidisciplinary business that links research, insights, strategy, communication, design and social impact. The result is a practice defined my meaningful insights and real world data, is collaborative and strategic by nature (leading with co-design and HCD methodology) and is ultimately measured for meaningful social impact.

About the Project

There is a certain magic to the process of print. A moment where concept and format are fused, never to be separated. Something new is created. Idea becomes artefact. Material comes to life. The tactility of the object is a key tool for any designer to create meaningful emotional connection with a user. As design education and professional practice increasingly abstracts into the digital realm, and young designers enter a post-COVID workforce, remotely, and often disconnected from the physical output of their work, the time was right to mount a case for paper. Not the mass produced, unethically sourced, chemically bleached, petroleum ink-fuelled tide of yesterday. A connection to paper now – recyclable (even circular in some instances), sustainably managed and sourced, produced with green energy, used to order – fostering haptic experiences that last. 

The understanding for using paper to its communicative, experiential, and sustainable strengths has never been at a lower ebb. We summarised the state of the relationship between designers and paper as such: 

• Boutique and short run print is the principal output of the majority of Melbourne’s design studios

• The big merchants are de-prioritising designer specification, and withdrawing from engagement with the design community

• Resources for communicative potential, material innovation or design inspiration are few and far between

• Design educators do not effectively skill design graduates in understanding paper as a communication tool, and its critical relevance to their professional output

In short, there is a dearth of instructional, best practice design artefacts; showing the potential of paper as an evocative, differentiating and ultimately, strategic resource to designers. And so we brought this opportunity to the attention of local merchant Paperstop. A company who largely stocks paper produced by the French Paper Company, who has long been known as a pioneer in recycled paper manufacturing. French is powered by fully renewable hydroelectric generator (saving over one million barrels of fossil fuel to date). 

The idea was to create a locally produced creative resource, featuring contributions from a diverse range of creative practitioners (and providing a platform for their work and practice), sustainable, small volume paper stocks, leading edge technology and digital production, tied together with creative prompts for lateral thinking and ideation. 

Our pool of collaborators was intentionally diverse and drawn from outside the usual ‘cannon’ of designs and makers commonly found in such work. Culturally and linguistically diverse practices, practices of cognitive diversity, indigenous practice were all central to the showcase of creative expression. The tactility of the work – ‘printing it out' offering concrete endorsement and validation of the output. 

Our intent is that 'WORTH HOLDING ONTO' inspires designers, and becomes a reference to navigate the printed object.

Category: Interact

Designers and Project Team:
Creative direction and agency principal: David Constantine
Senior designers: Patrick Staunton, Vanessa Cancino
Designers: Elise Hanscamp, Eleanor Downie