Second Road is one of Australia’s leading and most innovative design consultancies. They’re design strategists who work with the likes of the Australian Tax Office, CBA, Comalco, NZ IRD, Suncorp Group, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The talk “New directions in Strategic Design and Leadership: the philosophy of Second Road” is on Tuesday, 3rd August, Archway 1 lecture theatre at 5.15.

Monday, 2nd August, Archway 1 lecture theatre at 1pm.

The most prestigious of all natural history festivals, WildScreen in Bristol, has selected two films produced by University of Otago Masters students as finalists for its hotly contested Newcomers Award.

Science Communication students Nick Holmes and former Design Studies graduate, Guy Ryan produced the second film to be selected: “Carving the Future,” which profiles three passionate young New Zealanders as they lead projects driving positive social change. The film features the internationally-acclaimed environmental journalist and founder of 350.org climate action movement, Bill McKibben.

In October the four will go up against a field of first-time commercial film-makers backed by the big names of wildlife and natural history film-making, such as National Geographic, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

The Director of the University’s Centre for Science Communication Professor Lloyd Spencer Davis is delighted the two films have been selected.

“Those outside the film industry may not realise just how prestigious this award at WildScreen is and how tough the competition is to become a finalist. To have one of our student films as a finalist in each of the last three biennial WildScreen competitions is terrific, and to have two films as finalists simultaneously is almost unbelievable,” he says.

“We are enormously proud of our students and the talent they bring to communicating science. Their films are testament that it is not the size of your budget that matters, but the story telling and the creative minds behind the camera.”

“Carving the Future” won runner up for Best New Zealand Film.

Guy Ryan says it was ‘mind-blowing’ to receive the email notification of their WildScreen selection.

“We put in a mammoth effort making the film last year, with so many sleepless nights. Because “Carving the Future” is part of the global 350 movement, it already had a lot of momentum behind it that seems to be just growing and growing. Now it’s receiving these accolades. It’s quite humbling really,” he says.

Congratulations also to Matt Taine for picking up best animation for his film: ‘You’re Only Young Once’ and nomineees Chris Wood and Fiona Johnston for the same category [all entering their 325 Lightning Artists projects, supervised with Alex Gilks].

Oli Lucks and Tristan Manus, [previous design studies students] also picked up a number of wins including best video and editing.

Monday 14th September, Archway 2 at 1.00pm

A Pecha Kucha night involves the projection of a series of large images via a data projector. Invited presenters show 20 images each, with only 20 seconds to speak to each image (a total of 6.40 mins). The magic is the rapid fire presentation and the diversity of presenters and topics on the night. It is about bringing creative people together and getting inspired by their ideas.

Pecha Kucha Nights were initiated by Klein Dytham Architecture in Tokyo and are now held in over 250 cities around the world.

See the NZ website here: http://www.pechakucha.co.nz/

The world Pecha Kucha site is at: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

Wednesday 16 September, Union Common Room, 640 Cumberland St, University of Otago

$8 entry or $5 with student ID or Onecard. Cash Bar/Refreshments. Doors open 7.30pm.

Design Studies is co-sponsoring the event and Scott Savage is a participant.

The course develops design projects investigating a particular area of design interest. This year these areas of interest are likely to cover a spectrum of design opportunities. The creation of high quality well documented design outcomes is expected. Ten students are required for each project stream to run. This is a fantastic opportunity to work with international designers (Tim Gluyas and Toshi Endo) and produce some great portfolio work.

The audience will be able to watch the designers at work on live screens. At the end of each round, the winner will be decided by live audience SMS voting. iTunes vouchers will be given as random prizes to SMS voters. Free CS4 30-day trial DVDs giveaways for audience at the event. The two winners of each round will then go head-to-head in the college final round.

So come and support your classmates next Monday, 24th August at Leithbank Design Studio. Starting 1pm!

Wichai’s  presentation is next Friday 14th August  1.00pm in the CApSc seminar room.

The talk is on Monday, 17 August at 1pm in Archway 2 lecture theatre. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The image used here is of Cape Foulwind by Darcy McCarty.