Aussies star on global stage winning “Best in Show” at FESPA Global Print Awards

Melbourne Company All About Graphics has made a clean sweep of the FESPA Global Print Awards winning both the Printeriors Category and the Best In Show Award, which is selected as the most outstanding example of print, for their ‘Daniel Johns: Past, Present & FutureNever’ exhibition.

It’s Straight Lines and more for Melbourne-based signage company All About Graphics in their ground-breaking Global Award winning Daniel Johns immersive experience.

The 'Daniel Johns: Past, Present & FutureNever' exhibition, conceived by the iconic Australian musician, was created primarily to promote the release of his album 'FutureNever'. It also provided Johns with a personal way to engage with his audience after his hiatus from traditional touring. The opportunity also sought to reinvigorate Melbourne as the city emerged from the world's most prolonged lockdown due to Covid-19. Located on a prime corner of Collins St, Melbourne, the large-vacated space had sat idle during the pandemic and was subsequently chosen to house the exhibition.

The space was transformed into a multi-level immersive experience that invited viewers to journey through time, surrounding themselves in Daniel Johns' creative world of art, memorabilia and music. The project involved collaborating with a wide range of creatives, including artists, designers, lighting specialists, photographers and projectionists. All forms of print media, combined with custom-built displays and sets, created a truly opulent experience that was both emotionally driven and visually impactful. The team worked to overcome the many challenges presented by the vacated space, often adapting and redesigning elements to ensure the best visual result. The ground-breaking exhibition surpassed all expectations, and the album 'FutureNever', became Australia's highest-selling album in 2022. 

Chris Duke & Mark Burley, owners of All About Graphics said, "We are immensely proud of what the team achieved; the project incorporated approximately 1620m2 of printed media on various stocks, including art, vinyl, and fabric. Approximately 750m2 of this total was fine art printing which did not require any installation. The production time frame was initially set for three months, but the actual time frame for the team to produce and complete this installation after delays (out of our control) was three weeks."

"AAG has worked on many projects with award-winning Art Director Eddie Zammit and has a lot of experience translating his artistic vision into high visual impact exhibitions, balancing site constraints, production techniques, and managing the budget. Given the size and time constraints of the project, we were also supported by Rob Tennant and the team from Abacus Visual, who are long-time collaborators on various projects who assisted with some of the production & installation".

In commenting on the Award Winning entry Graeme Richardson-Locke, Head of Associations and Technical Lead at FESPA says, “It's clear that All About Graphics have mastered the management of production across multiple print technologies from latex to UV to waterbased with expert combination of materials to achieve this incredible celebration of print, and genuinely printing on every imaginable surface.”

“This year we had 210 Award entries which is higher than pre COVID levels. The standard of work across all categories has demonstrated and amazing blend of creativity and technology. That for me is the thing that's exciting, not necessarily just what the technology looks like, but what you can do with it. This is true for all of the Awards category but  Printeriors brings an opportunity to combine multiple technologies, across multiple surfaces which is what I find very exciting, concludes Richardson-Locke.

All About Graphics were not the only Australian Company to be shortlisted as finalists, with Melbourne based ImageBox also named as a finalist in the Printeriors Category, for their Australian Sports Museum Project. 

Project Credits

Presented by BMG 

Concept by Daniel Johns

Art Directed & Curated by Eddie Zammit

Photography by Holly Hawkins & Ben King

Printed/fabricated and Installed by All About Graphics (special mention for support from Abacus Visual)