Runningbean Design

Winner in the Environment category of the 2009 New Zealand Montana Book Awards, A Continent on the Move.

Illustrations designed to be accessible summaries of complex processes.

Punchy communications materials that stand out from the crowd.

Creating unique and attractive branded materials such as this 2009 Calendar.

Illustrations that communicate your vision.

Creating illustrations that are informative and attractive.

Conference display graphics that stand out from the competition.

Illustrations that add value to your documents.

Andy’s design work is attractive, serves a purpose, and yet still displays creative flair, even when a strict brand standard must be satisfied.

Dr Desmond Darby

… his ability to translate the often half-formed ideas of his clients into a polished product, without unduly imposing his own will, sets him apart.

Dr Ian Graham

Andrew proved himself to be a talented graphic designer with extensive technical skills and a keen interest to expand his knowledge.

I quickly discovered that GNS Science had an outstanding asset: a graphics design artist with a MSc in Earth Sciences and geophysics in particular. Not only is he highly competent at manipulating his way around complex graphics design software packages, he also understood our language and what we are all trying to communicate.

Dr Hamish Campbell

Runningbean Design is an illustration and design company. We provide illustrations that successfully communicate your message with clarity and accuracy. Our design is powerful and elegant.

Whether you wish to create a fresh identity for your organisation or are seeking bold and expressive visuals for your next project or presentation, we can take your vision to the next level.

A Continent on the Move

I recently completed work on Ian Graham’s ‘A Continent on the Move – New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century’. The work on this 377 page book included layout and over 160 illustrations. This book won in the Environment category of the 2009 New Zealand Montana book awards.

A Continent on the Move This popular science book was designed to be accessible to a wide range of readers and is rich in stunning photography and illustrations explaining clearly the geoscience of the New Zealand region.

The layout is designed to clearly break up the book into 99 concise articles over 13 chapters.

Each of the Illustrations are intended to be intuitive and accessable without being overly simplistic. I have attempted to intergrate the illustrations visually in to the text with creative layout, ‘breaking the grid’, where there was opportunity to create links between image and word. I was also fortunate in being able to make use of the attractive output of some advanced GIS modelling and visualization software.

A facinating and rewarding project to work on.

In Search of Ancient New Zealand

I contributed to Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching’s excellent book exploring the natural history of New Zealand.

I was responsible for the majority of the books illustrations and oversaw the production of the books geological maps.

The key issue with this publication was creating a book that would appeal to a broad range of readers including those who may not have a science background. It was thus desirable to reduce the complexity of graphics, where at all possible, to their essentials, improving access to the concepts that can sometimes be a little tricky to grasp.

Working closely with Hamish, I went through a number of cycles with each of the graphics until we were happy that we’d simplified them into a form that best communicated the message or concepts.

It is very rewarding for me to communicate science successfully through illustration and I feel fortunate to have worked with Hamish Cambell, one of New Zealand’s foremost science communicators, on this book.