Finding a creative voice
by Katrina Kalleske
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Creativity and business acumen clearly run deeply through Anthony De Leo and Scott Carslake. The 1997 graduates of UniSA’s Bachelor of Visual Communications have just celebrated a decade as business partners in their Adelaide graphic design company
Voice.
Their creativity is evident in the number of prestigious design awards that the pair has won – both within Australia and internationally.
One of their most recent awards was the outcome of working with Adelaide photographer Toby Richardson to produce a catalogue to accompany Richardson’s second exhibition of old mattresses. The catalogue, More singles, couples and queens, has picked up four international awards and four national awards in recent months.
The most prestigious of these was a Certificate of Typographic
Excellence from the internationally renowned New York Type Directors
Club (TDC). This is actually their sixth award from the Club but De
Leo said the typography award is one of the hardest to win.
"Largely the awards are judged on experimentation and creativity with typography, and with the TDC being founded in 1946, it is looked upon highly amongst the international design community," he said
"Winning a silver pencil at the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association Awards was also a highlight."
Additionally, Voice won a handful of awards at the 2008 Australian Graphic Design Association National Biennial Awards, and was then selected by its peers from the national pool of design expertise to sit on the judging panel for the awards.
"Selection onto the panel is the ultimate recognition from Australia’s design community of a studio’s commitment to quality and creativity," De Leo said.
Voice’s work is a mix of corporate and creative, ranging from working with artists to large corporations. De Leo and Carslake established Voice in 1999 and spent the first four years working from the cellar of De Leo’s parents’ house. When work became more consistent and they were ready to expand, they moved into their city studio.
De Leo said the awards give them a chance to test their creativity.
"It is nice to see how we are standing out amongst designers around the world whom enter the same competitions, however we‘re aware that competitions are very subjective so we don’t take them too seriously."
The pair also employ another UniSA graduate, Shane Keane, as a junior designer.