Joanna Alpe is Creative Director and founder of We Love Inc, a awarded design studio specialising in interactive brand and spatial communication, with a foot in both Auckland and London. After emerging blinking from a late night life of band photography and music design, she embraced strategic brand design in the corporate sector before returning in 2008 to another relatively late night existence - splitting her time between two countries with diametrically opposed timezones. In her spare time she reads up on code and wishes she had shares in Skype and Dropbox.

Rebecca Mills is the founder of Ministry of Green, a sustainability strategy and innovation consultancy. With training in both science and policy, Rebecca has been advising at a senior level on energy, climate change, resource management and sustainability issues to both governments and business for more than ten years.  Rebecca's specialist knowledge has led her to develop innovative strategies and masterplans for many high profile, world leading and complex projects in both New Zealand and Europe.  Rebecca has a passion for fashion, history and upcycling. In her spare time you might find her delighting in dusting off discarded objects to reveal new functions and beauty.

Sarah Laing is an award-winning writer and graphic designer. Her design has been recognised by the Best Awards, BPANZ and Graphis, and she has worked for leading design agencies in NZ and NYC. As a writer, she has won the Sunday Star Times short story award, the Buddle Findlay Sargeson fellowship and the Michael King Writer’s Residency. She has published two books, ‘Coming Up Roses’ and ‘Dead People’s Music’, and is currently completing her third.

Melissa Laing works across three fields of art practice, making, curating and writing about it. She is fascinated by (in)security discourses, questions of sovereignty and how art performs politics, coming at these ideas through both art and theory. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the then Auckland Institute of Technology in 1997, received a Huygens Grant to undertake a year of postgraduate study in the Netherland and finally completed a PhD in 2008 at the University of Sydney.

She has exhibited widely in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany and New Zealand. Most recently Melissa has travelled to Dunedin to create an installation for the Blue Oyster Project Space, to Iceland to present a paper at the 6th ECPR General Conference and curated the Print Season 2011 at ST PAUL St Gallery.

Edgar Melitao has worked within the Graphic Design industry for over 15 years, but has been a creator for much longer. Having worked for a variety of countries including Portugal, Brazil, USA and now New Zealand, his work is eclectic, often drawing inspiration from the diverse communities and cultures that surround him.

With Portuguese origins, Edgar’s Latin heritage is reflected in the way he works, often drawing inspiration from the energy and passion presented in a brief. His work is highly conceptual with his inspiration coming from a broad understanding of different cultures, people, languages and environments, with experience working within the graphic design, advertising, marketing and fashion sectors.

“For me, designing is an expression of who I am as a human being, with all the complications, feelings and emotions. I take inspiration from many different things; clever graphic design, picture books, colour, emotions, memory, patterns, the work of various artists, etc.”

Currently one of two Art Director’s at The Kitchen Media Ltd, Edgar has worked on a number of projects that have a distinctive South Pacific flavour. The fusion between this and his own background continues to mould and inspire his work.

Originally from the UK, Chris has spent the last 10 years following his dream of living on the other side of the world, chasing waves.

After 5 years of University, Chris landed his first job in Auckland for a small architectural practice with a bent for hospitality. In the 7 years as design director, Chris was involved in the design of over 90 hospitality outlets including bars, nightclubs and restaurants across the length and breath of the country.

More recently, Chris has started his own boutique design practice, ctrl SPACE ltd. Again focusing in the hospitality sector, Chris has applied his hands on approach to create a practice with that ‘personal touch’. Always design focused and detail driven, Chris has aligned himself with some of Auckland’s key hospitality operators and continues to grow these relationships in an effort to bring a new aesthetic to the bar scene.

Chirs’ design style could be described as Scandinavian logic combined with Industrial edge and a hint of Domestic scale. The primary driving force behind every design is to push both the clients and consumers perception of ‘normal’. Repetition is not a notion Chris likes to entertain.

Always ever obliging to ‘research’ what the competition are doing in the hospitality scene here and overseas, Chris’ knowledge of bars, operators and hospitality as a science, is second to none and regularly offers design consultancy to one of NZ largest breweries - DB breweries.

When not walking Jack, his 2 year old Black Labrador, Chris has his eye on the surf webcams. Keen to travel the length of the country to track down the best waves possible, to say Chris is a keen surfer would be an understatement!

Currently involved in numerous new and exciting bars in the Auckland region, 2012 is set to be another frantic year at ctrl SPACE ltd.

Arch MacDonnell is the Design Director of Inhouse, a small Auckland based graphic design studio providing design for print across a range of diverse sectors,with a focus on arts-based projects. He is a professional member of the Designers Institute of New Zealand as well a current board member. Arch has won numerous design awards and was a judge at the BEST awards 2002 and 2009.

Billy Apple, ONZM (born Barrie Bates in Auckland, New Zealand in 1935) is an artist whose work is associated with the New York school of Pop Art in the 1960s and with the Conceptual Art movement in the 1970s. He collaborated with the likes of Andy Warhol and other influential pop artists. His work is part of the permanent collection of Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, the Christchurch Art Gallery and the SMAK/Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent, Belgium). He studied at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1959 until 1962. In 1962 he changed his name to Billy Apple. He moved to New York in 1964 with his friend David Hockney. In 1969 he established Apple, one of the first alternative spaces in New York. He returned to New Zealand, permanently in 1990. Billy Apple currently lives and works in Auckland.

Shabnam Shiwan is a Design Director at Alt Group, a multi-disciplinary design studio based in New Zealand. She studied at AUT in Auckland and has been involved within the Design industry for over a decade.

Shabnam’s design work has been recognised in New Zealand’s Best Design Awards and internationally in the Red Dots, the ADC, AIGA, AGDA and One Show awards. Her work in the fashion sector is held in the collections of the Musée Galliera, Paris and the Auckland Museum. Shabnam’s typographic design has been exhibited in Objectspace and published in Graphis and ID Magazine.

Emma is an industrial designer, photographer and avid cook living and working in Auckland. She is on the Industrial Design team at Fisher & Paykel helping to create new water spigots for refrigerators and other useful stuff you probably shouldn’t think too much about.

‘Our Kitchen’ (look it up), is the number one food blog in New Zealand and has been featured internationally on high profile design and lifestyle websites such as ‘Design Sponge’ which receives like a billion hits per day. Emma likes cooking to Metallica and Nelly and is available for parties. More about the collaboration on our blog —
Eat or Be Eaten.

Having studied Design at the Auckland University of Technology and Fine Arts at the Elam School of Fine Arts, Kelvin Soh (b.1974) is one of a handful of designers who continually blur disciplinary distinctions with a conceptual and context-responsive approach to Design. A designer for over 15 years, Kelvin was a member of innovative design studio ‘The Wilderness’ and was responsible for the creation and packaging of notable brands such as 42 Below, 420 Spring Water, the Tiger Translate event platform and Charlie’s Drinks. The Wilderness was known for its ‘challenger’ position in relation to context and is a strategy still relevant to Kelvin’s practice today, made visible in his client-based work for Stolen Rum and Triumph & Disaster.

Kelvin has always been an advocate of research-based practices (design as inquiry) and balances commercial projects with non-profit activities like his ongoing research into ‘Indexicality’, giving lectures, curating design and making exhibitions. Soh has spoken at the ‘Semi Permanent’ Design conference on three occasions and has participated in group exhibitions such as ‘The Future Is Unwritten’ (Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, 2009), ‘Magazine’ (Gambia Castle, 2009) and time-based projects with institutions such as the ‘Tween’ poster series (Artspace, 2008) and ‘Nine Mirrors’ (Govett Brewster, 2010).

Kelvin is currently completing his Masters at the Elam School of Fine Arts and will be launching a new publishing imprint called DDMMYY in early 2012.

Having spent the last 11 and a half years toiling away behind the mahogany as a bartender, and running over 20 bars between New Zealand and Australia including the last 4 and a half years at Wellington’s iconic Matterhorn forming what was to become an award winning team with Riki Carter and Claire Harlick. Calem Chadwick is a name familiar to most in the Hospitality Industry.

Winner of multiple NZ titles and representative honors it was Chadwick’s work within the New Zealand team at the 2010 42 BELOW Cocktail World Cup, known for its active encouragement of creative flair, that showcased his ability to create drinks with interesting interpretation and great depth. His continued work consulting to bars and unquestionable passion for his industry has seen him garner an admirable body of work and continued success.

Calem has most recently made the move to Auckland to join forces and collaborate with Rum Runners Roger Holmes and Jamie Duff of STOLEN Rum as their Minister Plenipotentiary or Brand Ambassador to form an exciting fusion of brand and cocktail innovation.

Gary runs the Gas Project, a Wellington-based design company (of one) working in book, brand and graphic design. Formerly a partner in Ocean Design Group, he left in 2009 to live a quiet, carefree life of late starts, small clients and little responsibility. That is yet to happen. In the meantime he works for an eclectic range of clients in the hospitality, food & beverage and publishing fields. Which is ironic given he doesn’t really cook or read that much.

Tristan Thomas is the owner of Wheelworks - a business created with the aim of building and customizing NZ’s best handcrafted bicycle wheels. Tristan entered the bicycle industry in 1999 after several years as a glider Instructor on Vancover Island. He moved to NZ in 2002, and after working for a number of bike shops, he established Wheelworks. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the Wellington Institute of Technology and worked with their Centre for Smart Product which interfaces with local companies to assist with the design of innovative products. Tristan is a regular contributor to New Zealand Road Cyclist as well as New Zealand Mountain Biker magazine. He is director-sportif (manager/mechanic etc etc) of Wheelworks Racing, a top-level amateur road cycling race team. He likes his coffee black.