The phrase “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” was the departure point for the latest t-shirt in the-affair’s quest to clothe the creative men of this world in something that not only looks good, but starts intelligent conversations.

If Machiavelli didn’t actually say it in 1513, he sure did mean it. Instead we had to wait till 1974 and Don Coreleone, who was actually far better at getting to the point than poor Niccolo. So to cut this short, your enemies can always be counted upon to be just that. Unfortunately your friends often cannot.

A single line from William Gibson’s cult-classic Neuromancer speaks volumes in this t-shirt for the-affair.

Created in collaboration with Dave Black, the graphic is a powerful visualisation of Colonel Willis Corto’s tragic tale of betrayal.

In a cold-war future that never happened, ‘Operation Screaming Fist’ would have crippled the Russian defense computers with a sophisicated virus had it run to plan. Instead, Colonel Corto met his fiery doom high above the icy steppes of Siberia.

Just another Jesus shirt you’re thinking, right? Not exactly… ‘Muslim Jesus’ is a reflection on the futility of religious intolerance. From afar, Jesus stares serenely at those surrounding you. But up close, Islamic crescents cluster together in abstract patterns. Anyone close enough to know this and still want to have it out, should’ve already registered on your fuckwit radar.

‘Muslim Jesus’ is one of the t-shirts I designed for the-affair. The graphic itself is the output of a Flash engine I developed which takes an image and replaces the pixels with a symbol. Its actually an iteration of a previous project Your Own Personal Jesus, where you can read more about the process and Flash engine.

the-affair is a brand that creates beautiful conceptual t-shirts for the intelligent consumer tired of the cute-sy threadless aesthetic. Its the love child of myself and Dangerous Dave Black.

With no physical presence on the high-street, we began with the simple insight that fitting rooms have full length mirrors for a reason. The website was thus created to mimic the actual experience of trying the shirts on.

Awarded the FWA Site of the Day 29.03.2008

To list my responsibilities would simply take too long, but ‘absolutely everything involved in starting and marketing a business’ would be pretty close.

Applying what I do everyday for other people into my own concept/business has been nothing short of exhilarating. Every day I am learning first-hand what we sell to clients on a daily basis – and this is very valuable information.By far the most interesting part is the blog marketing. Obviously as a start-up brand we have nought but our wits and instincts to get our message out there. So how do you get an unknown brand known? And how do you sell t-shirts that aren’t expensive in your home market but are pretty expensive everywhere else? If you’re interested, check our press-to-date here.

Launch the-affair

‘Un-illustrated’ is a self-initated project exploring the power of illustration. The concept was very simple – use absence to speak volumes.

I set about removing illustration elements from iconic pieces of communication / graphic design. Then I set up a Flickr group and opened the project up to anyone willing to spend 15 minutes in front of Photoshop. This was both an experiment into the ’stickiness’ of the idea as much as a way of distributing the workload. It continues to be a work in progress.

Launch Un-illustrated

Boredom Is Your Fault isn’t just another blog – its a lens through which you see the world. Think of it as a personal ethos, a manifesto for living if you will.

Begun in January 2006, its an uncompromising filter of the best creativity that our little globe has to offer – be it art, design, advertising, music or fashion. In other words, its an archive of all the coolest stuff I come across over the countless hours I spend scouring the web. Its the space where I can say what I think about other people’s work whilst shameless promoting my own.

The logo was intentionally created to mimic the magnets you get as a child to play with on the fridge. And in many ways that is part of the manifesto – to look at the world as with the eyes of a child. To constantly be in awe of everything around you.

It was the first wordpress theme I designed and coded. It was always my intention to release it into the wild, but my coding leaves a lot to be desired ;-p. Many thanks to Chris Blackburn for his help in this department.

Launch boredom is your fault

‘Your Own Personal Jesus’ is a project that explores the idea that religion has been replaced with global consumer capitalism and its associated vices. Taking an iconic image of Jesus as the ground, I developed a system in Flash which replaces the pixels with any symbol desired. The example above is a composite running top-to-bottom as follows: Alcohol; Death #1; Tobacco; Cocaine; Caffeine; Wealth #1; Ecstasy; Death #2; Wealth #2.

Launching in time for Christmas 2007, Your Own Personal Jesus will open this project up for anyone to upload any symbol of their choice, then publish the result as part of their blog, allowing them to quickly and easily make a comment on religion today. The results will be exhibited in London sometime during Summer 2008.

Launch Your Own Personal Jesus

This wall was the second collaboration between myself, Dangerous Dave and Wen. We began a few days before halloween with 20 litres of black paint and the previous mural. I recorded the whole process and compressed it into these 90 sec. Its much nicer to watch that way.

The first collaboration between myself, Dangerous Dave and Wen. We had a new flat, a house-warming party very soon, no concept whatsoever and a whole lot of beer. If you’re interested, I did the typography. And who knows, possibly I will save the world. And you might too…

Cast your mind back to the old days, when 2.0 was something you’d find on the side of a box of software. Remember, before Flickr? When having your photos online was anything but easy?

Launch pre-Flickr

This triptych captures the hysteria generated by the mass-media ‘war’ propaganda immediately following September 11, 2001. The single protagonist floats through an isolated cityscape, conscious that everyone else has already fled, and confronted only by his own shadow.

Exhibited April 2002, ‘Byte Me’ (Group Show), Phototechnica, Sydney.

These seven images are a small selection of a much larger series completed in 2000, whilst I was living in Barcelona. Though many of these images are not from Spain, they reflect my own search for identity whilst assimilating into another culture.

Each image captures a single protagonist engaged in their own life, thoughts and desires whilst metaphorically capturing my own situation. Stylistically borrowing from the social-documentary images of Inge Morath, the series is an attempt to capture the inherent beauty of the everyday.

Exhibited May 2002, Palace Cinemas Leichardt, Sydney.