By A Web Design
By A Web Design
FREEMIUM
Pay For Play?
As many Aussie gamers are painfully aware, the RRP of a new video game is still a ridiculous AU$110 for most blockbuster titles, and as gamers’ purse strings continue to tighten that figure just seems more and more ridiculous. Luckily a new trend in gaming has started gaining momentum lately - the ‘Freemium’ model. But what exactly does this stupid term mean?
HAND MADE AT MONTAGE
A small pop up store with a whole lot of character, Montage is home to a treasure trove of goodies from local designers and artists, and is conveniently located smack bang in the heart of Northbridge.Open for one month only, the Montage retail space is brimming with personality, with wares such as jewellery, photography, aprons, toys, cosmetics and more filling every nook and cranny available.
INFAMOUS 2: ELECTRIC FEEL
Sucker Punch/Sony Computer Entertainment
inFamous was a title that arrived early in the PlayStation 3’s cycle, 2009 to be exact, and was quickly put among the top-shelf exclusive games for the system. After only two short years developer Sucker Punch is back with electrified super-hero Cole McGrath, in the aptly titled inFamous 2. Does this sequel pack the same ion charged punch of the original, or is it more of the same but lacking the same energy? Don’t worry, I have the answer and plenty more puns involving electricity.
BAGS OF PERSONALITY
Created out of necessity 15 years ago when Melbourne lad Stuart Crumpler realised he didn’t own a suitable bag to transport a slab of beer on his bike, Crumpler is a forward thinking company determined to solve the world’s problems one bag at a time. After crafting a bag to carry his slab, Stuart’s appetite for bag design was piqued, and thus Crumpler was born.
BUTTERED UP
While their peers spent much of their formative teenage years glued to the TV or PS3, local lads Garth Mariano and Matt Evans (aka Pidge) worked at laying the foundations for skate-centric fashion label Butter Goods. Brought together by a mutual love for art and skating, Mariano and Evans began producing garments at the tender age of 14, screen printing designs onto t-shirts just for the fun of it.
“It actually started in high school,” Mariano begins when asked about the inception of Butter. “I went to high school with Pidge and we met in year nine in art class and we both skated so we became friends from there. I think it was probably around year 10 that we started printing our t-shirts by hand, and we were just doing it for fun, we never sold them it was just for us, and then after school we kind of stopped doing it and one day we were like, ‘why did we stop doing it? Let’s do something again’. And at the time we were both working at Beyond Skate so we thought ‘let’s actually do it, I bet we could get it in the store’. We never had any great plan or anything, just something that we wanted to do for years.”
A few years and a lot of hard work later, Butter Goods continues to grow in size, offering up a range of skate-friendly threads, providing an alternative to American based labels that tend to populate most of the market.
“There’s definitely a lot more [skate fashion labels] overseas, the skate industry seems pretty much based out of California. In Australia there’s really not many apparel companies, I don’t want to say we’re the only one but there’s not many. We found it really difficult to get into stores because everyone’s so conscious of what’s happening in America and not on their own shores. That’s just part of how it’s always been I guess, it started there and it’s where everyone looks to, I guess that’s probably why.”
When it comes to designing garments, Mariano admits that he wouldn’t produce anything he wouldn’t wear himself; “right now all I think about is making something that I’d want to rock, and then in turn what Pidge likes. It’s stuff that I know that my friends would want to wear, that’s what it started off as, it’s just stuff that we would want to rock and luckily enough it’s what a lot of other people like to wear as well.”
As for the future of Butter Goods, Mariano says that he and his partner in crime are focusing on expanding the label to include a cut and sew line.
“We’ve always got stuff on the go. We’re focusing on doing a full cut and sew line for winter 2012; we want to do full pants, jackets, everything - a full apparel line. At the moment we haven’t done any cut and sew apart from our hats which is pretty minimal, we just design what fabrics and where our branding goes, so cut and sew is daunting but looking forward to looking into the world of patterns and shapes.”
To keep up to date with all things Butter Goods, be sure to check out quite-buttery.com.
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