Dearest readers, I’m doubtful that there will be many of you reading today, but if you happen to be here THANKYOU for stopping by, and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us at team TDF!
2015 has been another big one for us. This year we welcomed even more contributors to our line up – we’re particularly chuffed to have a wonderful new team in Brisbane – writer Jo Hoban and photographer Mindi Cooke – which has allowed us to bring you a whole bunch of new stories from a little further afield. Of course, this is in addition to our existing wonderful team of photographers and writers including Georgina Reid (gardens), Stuart Harrison (architecture) and Madeleine Dore, who brings us her immensely popular ‘Extraordinary Routines’ column once a month.
On a personal level, I feel that 2015 has been a year of steady growth and consolidation. We took on our first ’proper’ lease (!), and opened our own little gallery on site, which is basically a dream come true! Having our gallery space has enabled us to host five diverse art exhibitions this year, including our inaugural fundraiser exhibition, which, with your support and the contributions of 29 incredible Australian artists, raised $40,000 for charity this year! STILL SO PUMPED about this great result!
2015 also marked a big leap into VIDEO, which was possible only through our ongoing partnership with amazing local filmmaker Paris Thomson of SIRAP. Our collaborations with Paris this year kicked off with the ‘Melbourne Mornings’ film series earlier in the year, and ‘The Outlanders’, which took us to NEW YORK in the middle of the year to capture the ex-pat experience for a bunch of super talented creative Australians living abroad. We hope to make even more motion together in 2016!
This year we also launched our first ‘Like a Boss’ small business festival, which was so well received and supported! We loved being able to host event to connect with local small businesses in a really tangible way – so thankyou to all who came along and made this event a success.
After much consideration you might have noticed we didn’t host an Open House event this year (mainly, because it just seemed a little ambitious to host Open House whilst 8+ months pregnant!). But rest assured we are already hatching plans for 2016… I really want to take Open House somewhere NEW, and hope to bring that to fruition next year.
But as always, 95% of our job is about this website. As exciting as it is planning pop-ups and running fun events throughout the year, we’re always conscious that our number one focus is here, online. At its core, The Design Files is about uncovering new stories, finding the creatives we feel really deserve a moment in the spotlight, and using this platform as best we can to support Australian designers, makers, artists and creatives. It’s also about collaborating with a wonderful extended team of writers and photographers to bring these stories to life in the most vivid, beautiful way.
It would be remiss of me not to also extend a HUGE THANKS at this point to our small in house team – our Managing Editor Lisa Marie Corso for keeping everything running like clockwork, our super hardworking and talented styling and studio assistant Natalie Turnbull, and our excellent new graphic design assistant and photo editor Annie Portelli.
And of course, Thank you ALL so much for your endless support and encouragement, for reading each day, for backing all our ideas, and for turning up to support us when we host events and exhibitions. It really is YOU GUYS who make The Design Files possible, and for that we are truly grateful!
We’ll be re-visiting our TOP TEN Australian Homes for the next 2 weeks, and hope to see you when we’re BACK with regular programming on Monday January 11th 2016!
