“Nobody is born with an immediate and obvious gift for design. This is something we learn.” Anthony De Leo of design studio, Voice, speaks with Alice Blackwood.

“So what’s the difference between the good designers, the few great ones and the rest?” poses Anthony De Leo, co-founder of Voice.

“We believe it comes down to three things: motivation, dedication and most importantly ambition.”

Voice Studio

These are serious words – not just motivational – from De Leo, who heads up Adelaide-based design studio, Voice, with Scott Carslake.

Brand creation and development is the studio’s specialty, although the service Voice offers is “multidisciplinary”, says De Leo.

Casa Rio

“It enables us to build brands across the most appropriate communications channels,” he says.

“From the creation of brand names, identities and website, through to packaging, print and venue imaging.” And now interiors as well.

Casa Rio

This holistic approach is increasingly common among interior design studios looking to achieve a cohesive outcome across space and branding.

Branding-led, De Leo and Carslake’s distinctive vision for their discipline indicates a commitment to delivering their clients a complete and ‘experiential’ solution.

Casa Rio

Among their most recent projects is the relaunch and rebrand of Casa Rio – a project that required Voice to create a new identity for Casa Rio (formerly Rio Coffee), redesign the complete coffee portfolio, and re-design the Casa Rio showroom.

Casa Rio

Peer-to-peer collaboration is a common mode of working at Voice, with De Leo and Carslake often bringing in photographers and illustrators to contribute on brand-oriented projects.

With recent projects such as Casa Rio extending into space and interiors, Voice has collaborated with interior designer Georgie Shepherd.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon Identity

“Working with Georgie [on Casa Rio’s showroom] gave us greater flexibility throughout the process, and having a like-minded design approach made the process quite seamless,” says De Leo.

Exploration and discovery are an important part of the in-store experience produced by Shepherd with Voice and the Casa Rio staff.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon

“Georgie worked hard to create a venue that was adaptable, updateable, and featured a seasonal, marketplace aesthetic,” says De Leo, highlighting fit-out elements including industrial and salvage fixtures and materials, chalkboards with handwritten specials and a freshly-ground service.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon

That final piece of the puzzle: the experience of branding within space was achieved by an “echoing” of exterior appearance and branding indoors, “with touches of colour and consistency of typefaces wherever possible,” says De Leo.

Casa Rio is just one of Voice’s trans-disciplinary projects, and their Adelaide studio is certainly attracting the clientele.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon

De Leo and Carslake with Shepherd also completed the branding and interiors for McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon brand, and its heritage-listed cellar door.

“Voice’s stylistic approach was to ensure the brand philosophy was continued through to the fit-out.” Shepherd ensuring the Hither & Yon ethos was integrated into the cellar door experience.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon

Further afield (that is, interstate), new projects seems imminent and De Leo is firmly of the Y generation attitude that “the boundaries have almost completely dissolved within the global design community.”

Yet the perceived tyranny of distance between Adelaide and other Australian cities is a challenge Voice is still looking to overcome.

McLaren Vale’s Hither & Yon Brand

“We have been extremely close to winning interstate work, but the final decision has come down to convenience of location.”

Voice’s service, capabilities and fees are not in question here and so it seems only a matter or time before their unique mode of design spreads beyond the southern state.

De Leo and Carslake presented at agIdeas International Design Week in May this year.

Voice

voicedesign.net

(Hero Image: Hither & Yon branding for McLaren Vale)