Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, don’t take it as there not being plenty of designers out there who are better than me! keen observers may have noticed in my list over to the right of Adelaide design firms that ‘IKD’ has recently been changed to ‘KSD’. Well, the reason for that is that following 28 years with IKD as senior designer and more recently Director, Karin Seja has purchased the business from Ian Kidd on his retirement in April 2007. Ian Kidd Design have become almost synonomous with Adelaide graphic design, it’s pretty hard to throw a rock in this town and not hit something that hasn’t been influenced by their design. The company is best known for their corporate identity and packaging work. From a corporate identity standpoint, they have had a strong influence on such industries as local real estate, their breakthrough work for Toop & Toop has influenced a plethora of local firms ‘adopting’ the look of the sales signs that IKD instigated for them. It’s still a singular pleasure for myself to drive down The Parade and see the colourful Toop & Toop signs in front of their head office. While KSD have done a lot of strong identity work, I guess what they are most recognised for is their wine packaging. Along with Adelaide designer Barry Tucker, Ian Kidd’s designs have had an amazing influence on the look of wine labels both nationally and internationally, one needs only to look at the Graphis and Communications Annuals for the last 30 years or so to see the evidence of this. Over the years many designers have branched out from the firm to start up their own companies, including Matthew Remphrey, Gerben Van Der Hoek, Sam Iannucci. While their website is nothing special, be sure to check out their ‘Scribblings’ section for pdfs of their ‘newsletter’ that comes out infrequently – it contains a lot of the amazing work they’ve done over the past few years.