Thursday, 10 December, 2020 - 16:42
Curiosity about a vintage design stencil spurred senior lecturer Dr Annette O’Sullivan onto seven years of research into New Zealand’s wool bale branding.
A typographer and graphic designer at Massey University’s NgÄ Pae MÄhutonga Wellington School of Design, Dr O’Sullivan has a collection of wooden and metal-type stencils, and it was the discovery of a vintage wool bale stencil that sparked her interest about the object.
In the first project of its kind, Dr O’Sullivan completed a doctorate in the history of the iconic stencils which have become a well-known visual language for rural New Zealand, and are what she says the earliest form of branding in New Zealand.