Australian INfront

Based in Sydney, Frost Design is a design studio created and run by graphic design legend, Vince Frost. Well known for his bold use of typography and creative soltutions, Frost has quickly established Frost Design as one of Australias leading studios.

Whilst their focus is graphic design, Frost Design also works on advertising, digital, environmental and fashion clients. Including; Commonwealth Bank, Sydney Dance Company, Qantas, NIB, the Venice Biennale, Dinosaur Designs and American Express.

Frost Design will be represented by senior design, Sarah Estens.

http://www.frostdesign.com.au

In your website bio it says "Design for design's sake does not concern us. Making a difference does."
Can you expand on that a bit?

The reason for saying that is because we're not interested in just decorative design or design for the sake of designing something. For us the key focus is the client's brief and working out a solution that is going to create an effect.

Design is a powerful tool, colours, typography, etc. used to create point of difference and a great result - that's what we're aiming for.
Some companies are just focused on making stuff look great. We help businesses understand the power of communication and design.

Have you worked in places where the opposite was true?

Not personally. A lot of people work that way and there is nothing wrong with that. It's good that there are different approaches and flavours around the world for people to choose from. I want to attract challenges where we can make a difference. Not to just put our style onto something, but where we put our minds together with the clients' and create something with a much stronger solution.

Vince, you were the youngest person to be made an associate at Pentagram, and you've also noted Alan Fletcher as being an inspiration. How much did your time at Pentagram influence your work?

My time at Pentagram seriously influenced me as I was around 23 and very impressionable and hungry to learn about design, ideas and the way of doing things.

When I started there in 1989 it was a company of 80 people, a big beautiful studio in London. I moved from the south coast of England to London so that influenced me a lot too. Being around guys aged 40+ made me think "wow, this is actually a career for life".

As a design student I thought that design was a career for young people, because that was what I was surrounded by. At Pentagram I was excited by the passion for the idea – to interrogate a problem, work closely with the client, collaborating with a group of people to come up with an idea that just clicks.

One that says "this is the only way that this could be." It taught me to have a relentless desire to get it as right as you can with the opportunity you have. It also taught me about the typography and hierarchy of information. I remember watching them for hours designing posters and not getting what they were doing. Assisting them by photocopying, putting things away, mocking things up. It eventually clicked for me and I thought "oh my god I know what they're dong and I understand that" and it was a real eye opener for me. I learnt to try and do the best you can on every job.

Pentagram were a small team, one partner and three assistants. The partner was and still is a business person as well as a designer – they would develop strategies, organise meetings, plan the work and design the work which also influenced me.

Working across different things – a corporate project one day to a cultural project the next, a book, magazine or fashion client – the diversity of what they were doing was exciting. The experience was stimulating, challenging and rewarding. That's something I try to continue today.

Do you ever have projects where a clients budget or other restrictions make the ideal result unobtainable?

Yes, of course. After doing thousands of jobs over the years, not all of them go the way you want. Not every client's nice, but most of them are. I would say the majority of opportunities that come our way finish with a great result.

To try to do things really well all the time is a lot of work throughout our whole company: pitching for the work, winning the work, invoicing, managing, designing, crafting, printing, producing. A large group of people contribute to making it happen.

The key thing is the relationships we have with our clients are critical to us.We try to enjoy the process, get friendly with our clients and involve them in the process.

With that type of inclusion and openness we have less instances where things don't work.That transparency helps us maintain a good outcome.

Apart from all the other facets of Frost Design's work, you're also expanding with a fashion label. How did that come about?

We're not expanding as such, its still design and ideas. Frost the brand already exists, it's an extension of our design company. Instead of charging by the hour as a design company we are charging by the product. We have a full time employee working on production, marketing and sales of the tshirts.

It's taken a while to get off the ground but we're now selling them on our site and boutique stores are stocking them too. It's another form of expression and getting ideas onto a surface. It's like creating a book jacket or a poster but you wear it instead.

We are also expanding with more digital projects.

Our website is due for an update too, it will be moving from static imagery to video, which will better capture what goes on in and around our business and the time that's involved. I just love what we do and creating opportunities for ourselves our clients.

Have you read any interesting books lately?

No, (laughs). It sounds sad, but I haven't read a book for a very long time, which I now feel ashamed of. (laughs).

I feel guilty for not reading books but we read so much more today than anyone ever did in the past – with emails, google and all those forms of communication.

Have you noticed changes in the design process since the internet has created a global community?

You just noticed?

(laughs) No but I'm curious to hear from someone who has a history in deign prior to the internet being a part of the process.

Only by a couple of years, ha, cheeky! To be honest I can't remember living without it, it's funny.

Deadlines seem to be more urgent, now that the ability to create more urgency is there…

I think it always was urgent, it's just that its now easier and we as designers have far more responsibility and are far more able. What used to be a whole team of people can now be one designer.

Take typesetting for example: the process was once a nightmare. I'm so excited that all that extra stuff doesn't have to happen anymore. Another example is Photoshop - image retouching has been a phenomenal change for photographers, designers and the production process.
It used to be an incredibly painful process.

Being able to work anywhere in the world from where you are, on your phone, on your laptop, live, not delayed, is phenomenal. It's instant information and communication that's only going to get faster. I compare it to still photography changing to the moving image.

To me deign and communication has been trapped for decades in a static way. But now the energy is alive and I find that incredibly exciting. We're going to become more like directors than designers. The transition is getting closer and closer to real life and getting finer and finer in our abilities to touch peoples' senses in a much more natural and effective way. I celebrate where we are today.

The negative side is the saturation point where it becomes addictive and incredibly hard to switch off – constantly having text messages, emails, clients demanding things to be done quicker and quicker .

I suppose what stands out for me is that no matter what medium we use or time we're in - the critical thing is the ideas.

As 'green designers' do you approach all projects with an environmental focus or is that determined by your clients?

The majority of clients today are focused on being green and have been for a number of years now.

There was a time when they didn't care less, but after the Al Gore movie, people got scared and thought "oh my god, we need to do something about this, we need to have a green policy". All the large corporation are trying very hard to sort that out.

The good business journey and sustainability are important to lessen our impact on the earth. We work with all our clients to try and achieve that. They all have offsets in place.

We work with a lot of banks and big headquarters that are being designed at the moment with 6 and 7 star ratings. This is positive for the environment which I think is really cool.

How does an ordinary day at the Frost office begin?

For me I can't wait to get into the studio and have back to back meetings and see and feel the buzz that's going on in the space.

It's quite an infectious feelings in terms of every day bringing new challenges. Things you thought had gone away the night before are back.

Our studio is a big open plan space with music playing and lots of diverse projects stuck on the walls and on the floors. I feel like its an extension of your childhood or college time – where you can play for the day. Sometimes its stressful as some ideas and deadlines are challenging, but on the whole its very positive optimistic and productive.

Over time, does evolution of your skills make you look back and want to change past projects.

It's funny, I remember in the beginning I would always think that. I would think  " #$% I shouldn't have done that". Or I'd have a delayed reaction, like "fuck I've got an idea now after the things been produced". But I don't feel that anymore. I suppose I feel confident in what we're doing and I feel confidence that what we're doing at that moment is the right thing.

I personally don't like the idea of regrets or thinking too much about the past. I'm interested in today.

I've been stuck either side of that thinking – wishing I'd been born in a different country, or wishing I'd gone to a different school. Then sometimes I'd think about the future –  one day I'll be happy, or one day i'll have money and if it doesn't happen would I have a breakdown or a midlife crisis? (laughs).

So instead I think "fuck it, this is all we've got – lets make the most of it."

And by thinking that way it just really grounds you and gives you an energy to focus on the now.

Now you've got me thinking about all those jobs that could've been better and I'm flipping back into the wrong side of thinking. (laughs).

I guess I only thought about it when you mentioned watching your mentors at Pentagram making posters and not initially understanding what was happening…

Yes I think whats exciting in life is the constant learning. Whether its design, techniques or creating better relationships. Life throws you challenges and you get through the day more the wiser and confident in how to tackle the next day

Frost design was represented by senior designer Sarah Estens.

Originally thinking she wanted to be an architect, Sarah began studying in that direction, but later realised it wasn’t for her. She then moved back into branding and the built environment.

Her talk began by giving us a quick overview of Frost founder Vince Frost. Having moved to from England to Sydney 5 to 6 years ago, he became the first graphic designer invited to do a show at Sydney Opera House. His trademark style is his strong typography and originally worked predominant in print. Vince started Frost Design in Surry Hills, the studio now employs around 35 staff.

A few case studies of Frost Design’s work were shown, including their rebranding of Tourism Northern Territory (which featured a letterpress font designed in house specifically for the project) and their work with SA Water.

The SA Water project was a large endeavour that started for at the construction site of the eventual building. The chance to be involved at that early stage allowed for greater possibilities and, as Sarah remarked “it’s better to be involved form the beginning and incorporate the design into the physicality of the space”. The visual language of water was a consistent theme throughout the whole design including the base of the exterior which features a flowing strip of water running around the building. This is another example that reminds me of  Toben’s advise that creating trust and good communication with a client can build an idea to greater levels.

Expanding the brand of Frost design is something that Vince spoke about in our interview with him. Sarah gives some more insight into that concept when showing us a interior decoration project where Frost setout two whole apartments like a graphic designer’s world. Large leftover letters from old billboards (e.g. the Aussie Homeloans “A”) are used as eye candy. Strong typographical elements are used throughout, such as plates stamped wit the number 8 (pl8, gedditt….) and typographical pattern cushions.

Other areas that are pushing Frost Studio out of the confines of a regular design studio include their fashion label. T-shirt design is apparently a passionate love of Vince’s. Apart from their own label Frost were also asked to contribute the T-World range of Sesame Street themed t-shirts. This project brought them the added bonus of meeting Ernie and the Cookie Monster.

On the subject of the studio and its workings Sarah says that although there are defined departments within the 35 employees, the whole group intermingle on ideas and projects regularly. In regards to working with Vince and the question of whether his presence could overshadow over ideas Sarah says that after working closely with him she’s discovered that “when it feels that things have been exhausted Vince injects fresh ideas and excitement into things again”. His excitement in trying and building new things gives the staff the enthusiasm to meet the challenges of a project.

Each example of Frost Studio’s work had its own identity and individual feel. It also showed an ability to try new things and engage people visually with a unique approach.