the gas project

Tenaya is a Spanish-based climbing shoe manufacturer who still make all their products in Spain, also the home of Camper and Bob Dylan’s Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather. We were asked by the local distributor, based in Central Otago, to create a website for these world-class shoes. Safely roped in, we designed and built the site for maximum flexibility and ease of use, showcasing the shoes and some gravity-defying imagery.

To check out their range, head to their site here.

Oh boy, this book was a biggie! Close to four years in the making, various points of contact, hundreds of images and the weight of responsibility with working on one of the county’s most loved brands.

Sure to Rise: The Edmonds Story tells of the famous baking powder, patents, trademarks, the hugely popular cookbook, renowned factory and gardens, the family behind the brand, and the landmarks founder Thomas Edmonds gifted to Ōtautahi Christchurch.

Authored by Peter Alsop, Kate Parsonson and Richard Wolfe, the book uses more than 500 images to help document the Edmonds family story alongside the evolution of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most distinctive brands and its domestic trademark – the Edmonds Sure to Rise logo. Done and dusted, and available from (most) good book shops.

The Gas Project have designed their fair share of coffee brands. Sometimes the deal involves free coffee samples. Until now we’ve been reliant on a vintage Braun coffee grinder, that itself is reliant on an often unreliable Central Otago electricity network. So to keep visiting clients (and ourselves) in freshly ground coffee, the office has invested in a hand grinder by Japanese company Snow Peak through Wellington retailer and our new favourite store, Coffee Outdoors. The same old grind, just different. Great with Good Joe coffee. Drop in for a cuppa.

This project is one that is very close to home. In fact, it IS home. When we moved to Central Otago in 2019, we commissioned a simple house by Christchurch architect and sometime collaborator Charlie Nott. It’s still a work in progress, but we were stoked to win two awards this year, an NZIA Southern Architecture Award, followed a week later by the NZ Interior Design Award for a residential building. Good things come in small packages.

The Otago Brew School is a full time brewery course run by Otago Polytechnic / TePukenga from their Bannockburn, Central Otago / Comwell Campus. The by-product of teaching brewers is they make a lot of beer – in various styles. So they created a retail arm and Gas were tasked with naming, branding and package design. The can design is based on the location in Bannockburn, near Lake Dunstan – an environment surrounded by mountains and dramatic skies. The site is not only a brewery, it is the future of brewing in Aotearoa, by offering hands-on learning to help craft the next generation of brewers. We’ll drink to that.

Part of living in a small community is that if you want something to happen, you pretty much have to do it yourself. So a group of us in Ophir, Central Otago, have created a hall group that organises concerts and movies in the historic Ophir Peace Memorial Hall (c.1926). This coming weekend we’re welcoming two alt county performers from Australia and last years Gore Golden Guitar winner. Poster by us.

Wanaka-based the Gleam Team came to Gas Project for a brand new identity. The logo is based on the two owners, and the ladder reflects the nature of their business – Wanaka has some large houses with equally impressively-scaled windows. We also designed their van livery – the swirls are roughly based on the movements of a squeegee. The van is also as clean as their windows – it’s fully electric. Go Team!

Throwback Friday. A recent trip through Queenstown reminded me that Love Chicken does one of our favourite burgers. Which is just as well, because we designed the identity for the owner, Darren Love, as well as the mural inside. Love Chicken has been open a little while now and has established itself as THE place to get your chicken fix in the Central Lakes. They use organic Bostock Brothers chicken, and their sauces and salads are all made in-house. Another reason to cross the road…

Yes, annual reports are still a thing. We spent the 80s and 90s designing annual reports for large power companies, amongst others, and thought we’d seen the end of lining up rows of financial results in 7pt Franklin Gothic. However, when the MacDiarmid Institute came to us requesting a report that had only 5% pages of financials and 95% new science, we said ‘heck yeah’.