Being in nature and being away from our normal work and life allows us to view our life from a different perspective. Perhaps it is only then we can see where we might be stuck. Nature has a way of revealing to us the wisdom and values that already exists within us.

The Japanese expression shinrin-yoku translates to 'forest bathing'. The neurological effect nature has on us as people and our ability to be creative is greatly enhanced by allowing yourself to be one with it again.

Not A Design School is an opportunity for anyone who is willing to ask themselves the right questions, find the right answers and connect with the leaders in our field, who can bring the best out of them.

That is how we support and enable creatives becoming truly great creatives. This is what a week in the wilderness with Not A Design School will bring out in its students.

In the spring of 2020, Semi Permanent was commissioned by Tourism Portugal to design a live experience that would re-invigorate the community after months of COVID-19 infused lockdowns. The event needed to raise the profile of the City of Porto (a rapidly emerging European hub of design), while incorporating globally recognisable talent and a COVID-safe design that encouraged people to explore their country once more. Few voices in today's music world are as prolific as Sia Furler’s, and few eyes in the directing landscape are as visionary as that of Daniel Askill. With a 21-year creative collaboration spanning seven music videos and a global live tour, the Australian-born pair aren’t just responsible for billions of YouTube views and global critical acclaim, but are credited with designing a new visual language for what a pop-star might look like today.

Introducing a new immersive large scale festival for the city of Melbourne, celebrating the intersection of art, sound, ideas and technology. This is Now or Never.An amalgamation of Melbourne Music Week and Melbourne Knowledge Week, NoN seeks to push the boundaries of innovation, challenge its audience and invite all who are curious enough to experience Melbourne like never before. The Semi Permanent team were engaged by the City of Melbourne to develop an unmistakable brand identity that matched their ambition of creating an unmissable festival.

The case for diversity in creative leadership was settled long ago. Now is the time to accelerate the necessary change towards a more equitable industry today.After several years pivoting to more accessible digital programming in the wake of COVID-19, Rare with Google was invited in 2022 by AdColor (the premier creativity and technology conference designed by and for underrepresented communities) to host an intimate in-person track that would focus explicitly on helping existing leaders change the status quo. Named AdColor LEADERS, this intimate program accommodated 40 highly-accomplished delegates seeking insight on navigating the industry as it stands while actively change it in real-time.

As an inaugural concept our challenge was to set the standard for a space where future leaders could challenge the status quo, reinvent the industry, and reimagine the future. Taking inspiration from the AdColor 2022 theme, Still Rising, the brief was to create a malleable space that would ebb and flow between the communal and the intimate to inspire a new wave of creative activists.

Working with oral care innovator Hismile, Semi Permanent is proud to have conceived, designed and produced a major four-day activation to launch the rapidly-ascending Australian brand’s new range of temporary teeth tattoos: SmileStika.The creative intention with the SmileStika pop-up was to elevate the eclectic and expressionistic nature of a nail salon, hairdresser or tattoo parlour — these spaces where one is pampered, beautified and spends time socialising with friends. Whether viewed from the outside or experienced within, every touchpoint presents the iconically recognisable touch-points of these beauty spaces — from the structural elements through to the decorative — in a completely new way.

When Gucci presented a series of co-branded garments and accessories in collaboration with adidas as part of its adidas x Gucci runway collection, it caused a sensation. Here are two global brands: one at the upper tier of luxury, known for its Italian-made leathergoods and embellishment-heavy clothing; the other, a sportswear giant like no other, its wares worn on and off the court by athletes and sneakerheads alike. At its heart, this collaboration is about joy – of mashing up fiercely protected house codes to create something new and dynamic for today’s hungry-for-newness shoppers – and of finding inspiration in the unexpected.

Tasked with introducing the winner of the 2022 International Woolmark Prize, Semi Permanent brought together a likeminded community of fashion, music, design and film creators.

Known as the world’s most historic and important fashion design competition, the largely untold history of the International Woolmark Prize is a veritable lesson on the course of fashion and connects an astonishing list of industry legends, both past and present – all with the fibre of Australian-grown Merino wool. As a likewise Australian-born business, Semi Permanent is always excited by the opportunity to partner with brands making positive impact on the world stage, and so it was that we partnered with The Woolmark Company to ideate and produce an event in Sydney to welcome this year’s grand prize winner as part of his victory lap.

An installation taking inspiration from the saltscapes of Salin de Giraud and the geometry of the French Open to celebrate the arrival of Nike x Jacquemus at Australia’s premier multi-brand retailer.Semi Permanent Brand Studio was engaged by leading Australian multi-brand fashion retailer Incu to ideate, design and produce a pop-up launch activation to celebrate the long-rumoured release of the Nike x Jacquemus collection within its flagship Galeries Victoria womenswear store within the Sydney CBD. Comprising a central in-store installation and hero window display, the brief required for Semi Permanent to take cues from the brand guidelines of the collaboration and to contextualise them for an Australian audience within the framework of the physical retail space. Drawing inspiration from the iconic Camargue location and The French Open, we imagined an immersive environment fit for ushering in collaboration that flooded the feeds of fitness enthusiasts and fashionistas alike.

To launch an entire new product category, Semi Permanent devised a multi-touchpoint campaign that stood out during the gift-giving season.

When it comes to gifts, different scales of measurement come in to play. A perfume may be small, but its every spray onto your skin is imbued with the emotion of its gift-giver, the scent a reminder of a special relationship; it’s not about the size of an object, but rather the emotional meaning it holds, which can’t be measured. To help premium Australian multi-brand retailer Incu launch its new vertical of gifting options, Semi Permanent devised a creative execution that built the tonal language for the division and cut through the noise during the festive season.

Since its recent inauguration in 2019, the world’s leading non-fungible token event, NFT.NYC, has welcomed tens of thousands of attendees and hundreds of leading speakers and projects for several days of inspiration and collaboration to help drive the industry forward. As part of the 2022 event, held in the city through the summer, Semi Permanent was engaged by Web3 and PTE brands Perion, Zed Run and Human Park to concept, program and produce a satellite event that would be inclusive, genuinely engaging and that people would be talking about for months to come.

The future is electric, and Genesis Motors is at its forefront. To celebrate the arrival of three new EV models into Australia, and to present vision for the automotive company’s future, Semi Permanent was tasked with conceptualising and producing an end-to-end two-day event experience that exemplified the brand values of audacious, progressive and distinctly Korean.

How might the world's largest tech company help change the face of a notoriously homogenous creative industry?

The creative industries are notoriously homogenous. Diverse talent is abundant, but opportunities are few if you don’t fit a certain mould. Google wanted to do something about it, and so started Rare—a year-round Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program by and for underrepresent voices.

A Semi Permanent Hotel was born out of the necessity to disrupt the boundaries of live experience design during a year like no other.

After a year defined by stasis and the social distance between us, Semi Permanent and Highsnobiety combined their shared vision and commitment to champion progress, innovation, and purpose beyond product, to create a first-of-its-kind omni-channel consumer platform, engaging audiences through physical and digital means. Unifying Highsnobiety’s highly engaged digital audience, and Semi Permanent’s 19+ years experience in immersive event and curation design, we arrived at a A Semi Permanent Hotel presented by Highsnobiety - a safe haven of innovation and connectedness through design.

How does a retail and hospitality precinct entice customers back into its physical space in a post-Covid landscape?

Semi Permanent was engaged by the Commercial Bay in Auckland, New Zealand, to conceptualise and produce an immersive, site-specific art piece that would make the retail and hospitality precinct a destination during the three-week art, food and music festival Elemental AKL. With a broad program spanning the breadth of the city, the challenge for Commercial Bay was to standout within the festival lineup whilst contending with the physical constraints of its physical footprint and opening hours.

How does an Australian surf brand launch a global artistic collaboration while remaining true to its roots? In late 2017, Sydney-based surfboard shaper Hayden Cox (Haydenshapes) and New York City-based artist Daniel Arsham (Daniel Arsham Studio and Snarkitecture) shared a conversation about the consistencies and potential between their individual practices. Hayden, who has spent a lifetime taming natural forces through functional design, and Daniel, whose exploration of time provides a narrative backbone to his artistic practice, each recognised an opportunity that the other could enable—a space between to explore something new.

Dedicated to developing ideas that put an end to single-use plastics and their devastating environmental impact, applicants had the opportunity to work with leading National Geographic and R/GA experts throughout an intensive three-day accelerator.

A panel of experts from National Geographic and R/GA reviewed submissions from individuals and teams before selecting participants for the lab, which included inspirational talks, discussions, and one-on-one time with design, technology and marketing mentors. At its conclusion, one idea was chosen and showcased live at Semi Permanent, featured in a National Geographic editorial, and further developed through ongoing R/GA mentorship. This collaboration also marked the beginning of Semi Permanent as a 100% plastic free event.

In 2012, we launched Google Hangouts with Roman Coppola who virtually appeared at Semi Permanent from LA, joined by his friends Jason Schwartzman, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, Duffy Culligan, and more. We worked with Google to host Semi Permanent’s first ever interactive speaker session featuring Roman Coppola in 2012. In the 40 minute session, Coppola showed us through his incredible body of work and gave us a glimpse of his world and how his mind works.

Using Google Hangouts, Coppola virtually appeared at Semi Permanent Sydney from his hometown in LA, joined by his friends Jason Schwartzman, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, Duffy Culligan, Jack Raglin, Liam Hayes, Eric Bonerz and Sheena the Leopard. The experience utilised, and demonstrated the platforms various functionalities, delivering a dynamic and energised presentation to an audience of 2000+.

When the globally iconic airline wanted to discover the future of the cabin and terminal experience, they turned to us for a series of discussion and insight reports.

When a globally iconic airline wanted to discover the future of the cabin and terminal experience, they turned to us for a series of discussion and insight reports, delivered through our network of design industry leaders and creative futurists. Key to the conversation was Semi Permanent friend and collaborator David Caon, an industrial and objects designer tasked with the redesign and complete interior fit out of Qantas’ Dreamliner aircraft, who has gone on to refit the airlines First and Business Class lounges around the world. Kelly Sawdon, Ace Hotel; Philipp Steiner, Teague; and Kate Shaw, Airbnb joined the conversation panel, discussing present and future innovations for the travel and hospitality industries.