The Deflux Blog

With the London Olympics on the horizon, Deflux have just launched a blog-style website for NZ Sprint Cyclist Natasha Hansen. The site will allow Natasha to share her journey from Invercargill to the London velodrome with her friends, fans and family, as she shoots for the podium...

Featuring Twitter and Instagram integration and complete with a nice typographic logotype, we couldn...

Congrats to some of our favourite brewers, Auckland-Wellington-via-Invercargill's The Yeastie Boys on their latest beer, Gunnamatta, taking out the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular's People's Choice Award. It's kind of a big deal given the profile of this huge craft beer festival, and the only downside if that more...

Team Event approached Deflux for help with The New World Food & Wine Festival and The Great Kiwi Beer Festival. Knowing our work with the Mud House Group, and our extensive experience in the craft beer sector, they identified we were ideally placed to help bring these events to life. And so we came on board as design partners in a sponsorship role.

Events are great things to work on, and Deflux have been lucky to work alongside some great people on some amazing experiences over the years (Southern Amp and Beervana spring to mind).

Post-quake Christchurch is of course an odd affair, so when we were approached by the newly established Team Event to work with them on a couple of festivals then we naturally jumped at the chance - it's...

The earthquakes that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011 did more than destroy roads, houses and workplaces. The resultant rise in unemployment, shared living arrangements and ongoing aftershock stress were also some of the factors behind a 30% increase in demand for the services of the Christchurch Women’s Refuge.

After a small sabbatical in the studio of Lumo Photography gazing down on our city from the heights of Cashmere, Deflux are now comfortably ensconced in an office at C4 Coffee's HQ2 at 278 Tuam Street. Feel free to stop by and say hello!

When our good friends at the Yeastie Boys and 8 Wired (the latter with a Deflux designed website!) mentioned they needed a quick label for their Charity craft beer collaboration with Renaissance Brewing, how could we say no? The perfect antidote to the #bagofsuck that has happened in Queensland and Christchurch of late, by merely drinking this wonderful craft beer you're donating money to...

Last week we made it back into the building for a scant 2 hours to recover essentials and reminisce about the good old days - and that crazy morning prior to the quake when we were blissfully unaware that we were about to be rocked - and not in an awesome Bon Jovi way - for a second time.

Hi All.

At this time we just want everyine to know two things - firstly, Team Deflux's thoughts are with you all - our friends, our clients, our suppliers, our favourite stores, our favourite watering holes, everyone in Christchurch or everyone who knows someone here. 

"Simon Courtney is an awesome talent and we look forward to working with him. He has a no-compromise attitude to what he's set out to achieve." Todd Gordon - Steinlager Pure Marketing Manager

Our good friend and seriously talented artist Melissa "Misi" Sharplin came to us a couple of months back with plans to unveil a new website to coincide with her new exhibition, "Swit Swurl". Famous for her "Retro Nudes" series...

Deflux are a tight-knit community, which is a way of saying we don't hire or fire too often. So it's a big day in Deflux history when we can announce a new staff member.... Stephen Dalley.

Stephen brings with him a wealth of experience; some great iTunes; an encyclopedic knowledge of funny books; a dictionary that's bigger than mine; some fascinating ideas, and finally a passion...

It may be a bit almost an hour, but if you're interested in copyright and what it means today, then Cory Doctorow can always be relied on to promote a very interesting and progressive point of view.

First off, thanks to everyone for their messages of support and concern and we want to send the love right back to all of friends and family, all of the local businesses we support, and for what it's worth wider Christchurch - it's hard to explain what's happened beyond photos and I think whilst the physical damage is bad it's the uncertainty that's been worse... these aftershocks are fraying...

It's been an interesting week for technology in little ol' New Zealand.

Today marks the launch of the iPad which - let me assure you cynics of the world - will change the way we access content in the same way that the iPod has changed the way we interact with music. Whether this is good or bad is an argument for another...

Not being as young as I once was, and having what's generally known as "real world" responsibilities to attend to, playing video games is not as high up on my priority list as it once was. Reading about video games however is still right up there.

The lack of updates make a mockery of my last post on the importance activity, I'm sorry the whole weather and the new National album - and the National Party - have made me too depressed to type. But seriously though, the National album is just *so* good. I have to applaud Jono on that one too.... although I may be playing it a...

As an interesting follow on from the Jonathan Barnbrook interview about design and social responsibility (which you no doubt read from my previous blog post), here's Greenpeace's latest politik - a competition to rebrand BP. Their...

Design is an interesting proposition, and often held to be as far away from art as can be (cue Bill Hicks) - which is an interesting argument for another day. 

Which is said by way of context, as whilst reading the venerable Sydney Morning Herald this morning I came across this interesting interview with Jonathan Barnbrook, whom I've followed on and off since...

Pantone books are the designer's version of the bible - a Pantone colour swatch is *definitive* and as we all know brand consistency is the most important aspect of a successful brand!

Well joyous days, not only is there a sweet iPad Pantone app that almost brings a tear to my eye - I must have...

I don't know where Red Bull find the time to do anything else what with the making of tasty tonics, producing a magazine, sponsoring NZ and the world's best athletes, hosting bands at Red Bull Studios, and putting on a ton of events both big and small. But somehow they've got round to making a TV show, Red Bull Chronicles which not only sports a snazzy logo courtesy of, well,...

Recently back from a jaunt to Melbourne and nothing particularly blog-worthy that you wouldn't already know.

A lot of clients ask me about social media and only see the positive sides of things... but then you have to understand that the more you step into the public sphere the more you have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Of course then there's companies who fall out of step with their audience and social media bites back.... like when one of my favourite film director's Kevin ...

Viral videos huh? Here comes another one, this time courtesy of Ray-Bans (™), a brand that's really got back in the game and is now official apparel for anyone wanting to be down with the indie kids (and I should know. My flavour? Tortoiseshell. What's yours?)...

So did Matthew really get his face tattooed? If so he's broken...

One of our friends Jenafer Matthews has launched a website dedicated to exploring local culture and city affairs in Christchurch. Started because Jen has returned to ChurChur from New York and in her words:

Google may be an increasingly scary proposition with it's wealth of data and insidious hooks into most aspects of our lives, yet we cannot turn away - only hope they remain true to their motto!

So we Gmail, Gchat, use Google Docs, Google Maps, Google calendars, and even think about catching the...

It's funny how Flash is what drew us to the web almost a decade ago. The idea that the web could be engaging in that way, that it could move about and play music - as opposed to simply rendering text for you to read on you 15" CRT - doesn't sound that revolutionary now, but it was a...

We are so stoked with the new bowl at Thompson Park and the dawn of summer so figured why not support a lowbrow get together put on with my after hours brand Committed Few.

So get your friends together bring out your old school rides, park em up, get a skate on and catch up.... anyones welcome.

Some of you may know Simon, some of you may know his work, and most of you have probably been overtaken by him at some stage, especially if you drove in from Sumner to town last year. A 6 foot tall guy on a crazy looking track bike (ie. no brakes and no gears) is hard to miss! 

Like Kip I love technology, and because of this I love reading Wired Magazine almost as much as I love Apple products. That's a whole lotta love. Which makes today a double whammy.

Although I'm more of a Camp A Low Hum kinda guy to be fair, I was still interested to hear that the latest Big Day Out has been announced.