Museum of Contemporary Art
For over five years Michael Donohue, Creative Director of Amplifier, was Head of Design for Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. During his time there he designed an extensive range of exhibitions, catalogues, advertising campaigns as well as designing a sub-brand for the MCA store. Here is a small sample of the projects Michael undertook.
Hitchcock: Art, Cinema and Suspense
Be Alfred… Be very Alfred
Next time you take a shower make sure you lock the bathroom door. Michael definitely does after designing the identity and creating the advertising for the Hitchcock: Art, Cinema and Suspense exhibition.
Torn text, shadowy figures emerging from the dark and a wickedly black sense of humour all feature in this killer campaign. The man himself (Hitchcock, not Michael) also makes his ubiquitous guest appearance in the identity. The campaign featured a full set of print materials and environmental design which included both exhibition interior and outdoor media applications. As part of the campaign three spine-chilling TV commercials were created in conjunction with UTS film student Emma Hoff and aired on SBS Television*.
* no goldfish were harmed in the making of the TV commercials, however, one may have gone a little bit psycho.
NEO TOKYO: Japanese Art Now
Japanese art goes pop.
A rapidly changing arts scene needs a dynamic fluid identity and this is what was delivered for the Neo Tokyo exhibition. A series of bubbles constantly collide, intersect, breakaway and reform in an identity that is always on the move. Amplifier’s Michael Donohue created the identity along with a full promotional and environmental campaign, a range of exhibition merchandise and an 88 page catalogue. Michael created a unique typeface called Tokyopop for use throughout the exhibition.
MCA unpacked: Six artists selection from the MCA collection
Thinking inside the box.
MCA Unpacked: Six artists select from the MCA collection is a title that says it all … or does it? Actually, if we dig a little deeper and peel back the surface layers we find that the process of the artist delving into the contents of the art storage facility, opening the crates (under strict supervision) and unwrapping the artworks was central to the process of selection.
The act of unveiling and the aesthetic of storage and packing became the inspiration for the exhibition’s graphic identity. Packing crates were transformed into information panels, catalogue covers were cut from plywood sheets and individually hand stencilled, and opening night invitations arrived in the post bound in bubble wrap, awaiting to be unpacked by the recipient.
The exhibition catalogue won numerous awards including a distinction at the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA) awards, proving that thinking inside the box and outside the box can be one and the same thing.
ClientMCAServicesConcept _ Design _ Production _ Direction