DESCRIPTION Top 6×6 - Design Icons Invitation CLIENT Design Institute of Australia DATE June 2010 DESIGN CREDITS Büro North: David Williamson Tim Dow Soren Luckins PRINT CREDITS Büro North TYPE CREDITS Original - David Williamson

QUANTITY PRODUCED 100 PRODUCTION COST "Human anguish, we laser cut them ourselves and hand assembled" PRODUCTION TIME 3 Days DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH A5 (5.8 × 8.3) PAGE COUNT 6 PRINT METHOD Laser cut PAPER STOCK Optix in six colors BINDING Elastic band

The Top 10×10 series are an annual, well, series of talks organized by The Design Institute of Australia. This year is actually Top 6×6 with six designers presenting six projects. Based on all these sixes, the designers at Büro North decided to amp up the sixness:

Given the strong reference to 6 for the event, we developed the logotype based on a 6×6-grid, with intersecting lines creating the shapes of the letterforms.

But they didn’t stop there, the invitation for the series also exploits the six:

The shapes have been separated onto 6 different coloured stocks, and lasercut to produce the layered image, creating a depth of graphic that is relevant to the audience of interior designers and architects.

And as if tiptoeing around the theme of six wasn’t enough pressure, the designers also thought it would be a good idea to laser-cut the invitations themselves, using the lasercutter of the university they teach at.

We did a bunch of testing to balance the laser settings between, power, speed and frequency. Basically we wanted to cut it as fast as we could, using as little power to reduce burn marks. Frequency is how fast the laser turns on and off, so it affects the speed and how much paper gets vaporized away. Because we wanted to reduce scorch marks not all the pieces fall out freely, some weeding by hand was needed. It’s a long process doing it ourselves, but with refinement could be a really efficient process, and sustainable (no inks).

Well, the result is a beautifully interactive piece brimming with color.