Content area
Full Text
The addition of designer Andrew Johnstone has further enhanced the ability of Hobarts emerging educational hub to attract young creatives to the state
Australian design guru Andrew Johnstone has packed plenty into his 20-year international career, which has taken the University of Wollongong graphic design graduate to the bright lights of Hong Kong, Europe, the United States and back to Sydney.
Despite being a noted director, designer and creative thinker in his own right, Johnstone has traditionally been more interested in promoting the creative work of others through his website Design is Kinky, cult publication Empty and the renowned Semi-Permanent touring exhibition.
But despite the enviable CV, the 42-year-old remains convinced his best work lies ahead after recently moving to Hobart to become the new creative director of Tasmania's ground-breaking educational hub Foundry.
In what Foundry managing director Chris Billing describes as a coup for the state, Johnstone's move from Sydney to the fledgling organisation's Brooke St Pier campus on the Hobart waterfront signals an exciting new chapter in a unique educational model just a year into its existence.
For nature-loving Johnstone and his illustrator fiancee Nikki Catalano, the opportunity to escape big-city life and play their part in Tasmania's creative arts revolution was too tempting to pass up.
"I actually first heard about Foundry when listening to Chris talking on a design podcast," Johnstone told TasWeekend outside his under-construction offices.
"I really loved what Foundry was trying to do down here and decided, 'What the hell'. The projects I've been running over the past 17 or 18 years have been about inspiring creatives by showcasing the work of other talented individuals, so there was always an educational element to it.
"When I heard about what Chris was doing down here it felt like something I could really relate to and it seemed like a really natural thing to go into." Catalano, whose only previous experience of Tasmania was the couple of months she...