the gas project

Good Joe is a coffee blend developed by High Noon coffee and Al Brown for pouring in all of Al’s hospitality offerings, like Best Ugly Bagels, The Federal Deli and Depot. Joe ain’t fancy, but Joe is a great, honest drop. Head online to buy direct (we’re currently working on website updates), as well as developing the identity and packaging, alongside the very talented Hayley Brown from NY Art Dept. Good-o.

Small for producers are either brave, or crazy, or both. Tim Rose from High Noon coffee roasters, west of Auckland, is definitely both, and also one of the nicest folks you could hope to meet. A consummate creative guy, he converted an old shed on his farm (actually it’s more like a food forest) into a roastery and has been brewing up and delivering the goods since, well, last year. We worked alongside Tim and partner Helen to develop an identity and packaging, drawing inspiration from the old west, the new west, and points in between.

Lloyd Jones is an incredible writer. Euan Macleod is an astounding painter and artist. Designing a book where their talents are combined was a huge privilege and a little daunting. Trying not to come off as too much of a fan-boy whenever we met to discuss the project proved difficult, but the book itself fell into place very easily. Think of High Wire as a picture book for grown ups. It’s the first book in a series where artists and photographers are paired with writers and poets. We can’t wait to get stuck into the next one.

L’affare are a long-time Gas Project client and a bit of an institution in the coffee world. Since helping develop the L’affare brand and champion, Enzo, in the 1990s, we’ve been involved in incremental updates to L’affare’s retail packaging since. The introduction of their first strong blend, Mighty, offered an opportunity to revisit the character of Enzo, so we worked with illustrator and designer Rokas Aleliunas to reinterpret him. His work blew our minds, pretty much in the same way as a really good, strong coffee does.

Ed Hillary’s exclamation after conquering Everest was in our minds when we sent Scenic Playground to print. Another team effort with Peter Alsop (surely one of the most prolific people in the New Zealand book industry), the book covers the history of the promotion of New Zealand’s mountains from a largely design angle, showcasing advertising, print and photography.

With over 400 pages and 650 images, it was quite the design journey. Winner of the 2019 Mountain Book Festival and with lovely reviews in various media, the bastard was worth the effort.

Mount Edward is a Central Otago winery renowned for it’s Pinot Noir and Riesling. We think they produce some of the best wines in the country and wanted to pair the wines with a redeveloped label that carried a similar level of personality as the owners.

Organic, sustainably driven, grown naturally and made with thought for the future, each vineyard is unique, each wine individual. Grow your own way.

A difficult site and a floor plan butchered by earlier tenants made the design of The Hudson, a bar and charcuterie in downtown Wellington, a real challenge. Gas worked alongside Nott Architects and the client to reimagine a space over two levels that was cosy enough for coffee in the morning, airy enough for a cold beer on a summer afternoon and comfortable again at night for a quiet gin or whiskey. A place where you’d be welcome wearing old jeans or a hand-made suit. The identity system played on the history of the site ( a trading firm in the 1920s) and used images of the first whiskey shipment to the US after prohibition.

A finalist in this years PANZ Book Awards, Annual 2 by Kate De Goldi and Susan Paris was built upon the design of the first Annual, designed by the brilliant Mr Spencer Levine. When you have a start like that, two authors with amazing vision and a black book with NZ’s best illustrators, our job gets that much easier. But if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it, I guess. Dive in.

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L’affare Auckland was recently voted Cafe of the Year by @newmarketnz

We’ll take that (with Nott Architects).

Al Brown doesn’t do anything by halves. When he said he was planning a BBQ for some folks and wanted a logo, we were on board. When he said the BBQ was for 1000 people, with transport to a food forest, live art, drink stations and a concert by Dave Dobbyn, we went overboard.