This charming 1957 cover may have once ‘dressed the set’ on public transport — en route to home or work. When people read off paper in trains and buses, seeing Inspector Maigret’s puffing silhouette in someone’s hand would have made my graphic designer day.

Australia Day 2015 in Sydney. Low cloud and an all-day drizzle softened the colours and also toned down the red-white-and-blue flag-wagging nationalism that usually happens on the harbour at this time. As the clouds rolled over the houses on the opposite shore and the city buildings and the fibreglass hulls and the bridge and opera house you could almost imagine another January day on Milk Beach in similar weather, a few hundred years ago.

Photography, Julia Charles. Design, GS. Plating up, Heidi Dokulil/GS. Offset printing, Seed. Type, Trade Gothic Bold Condensed 20. Paper, Stephen Smart White 330gsm.

Is there a name for this type of design thinking? It was such a modest intervention I almost didn’t notice this public bench outside a Maroubra (Sydney) cafe. Or rather, I saw a public bench with two places to rest a cup and plate, but didn’t immediately see the elemental charm of the thought that made someone see a piece of city street furniture differently.
Other ways of seeing cities —both simple and complex—will be one of the topics covered in our new, soon-to-be-launched site: Good Habitat.

Julia Charles’ beautiful, unpretentious photo compositions for our Café de France stationery.
Photography: Julia Charles. Plating up: Heidi Dokulil and myself for Good Habitat. Also starring: my wonderful French pocket knife, the Compagnon from Le Thiers.

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Essence of chairness + nice nicks, chips, scratches and smudges — and slightly zoomorphic to boot.

Somewhere within the idea of ‘exotic’, a place still exists for mystery — and a type of freedom we have (an elusive one) in not knowing.
Details from a painted cabinet of unknown provenance.
Collection of Antonia Williams.

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Café de France brings together the creative talents of restaurateur Rafaele Yon and designer Richard Peters, with writing, graphic style and Le Petit Journal produced by Good Habitat, a Sydney-based unit of writers, art directors and editors interested in things local.
(Good Habitat is a new working group founded by Heidi Dokulil, Beatrice Chew and myself.)
Please visit Café de France, 19 Havelock Avenue, Coogee. The food is wonderful!

A Voyage Round the World by William Funnell, Mate to Captain Dampier.
Printed by W. Botham, for James Knapton, at the Crown in St Paul’s Church-yard. 1707.
Collection of Antonia Williams.

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My two friends and work buddies (pictured above) have produced some beautiful images for an arts magazine. The cover picture will appear soon with the publishers as models. Here Beatrice and Su-An test drive some of the elements that make up the constructions.
Mask making and styling, Beatrice Chew, researcher designer.
Photography, Su-An Ng, animation filmmaker.
General idea, GS.
Visit RealTime. Read the cover story.