BEST DESIGN HOUSE: Stella Design

Nestled deep in Sydney’s design district, Stella Design has been out there plying the trade for over seven years now, and each of those years they’ve grown along with their clients. Thanks to a winning combination of creative design skills, business acumen and marketing know-how, what’s more, they offer free initial consultations to curious companies.

At this point we would have quite liked to work in a pun involving the word ‘stellar’ and possibly space travel, but decided it would be less cringe-worthy to have a chat with Creative Director Stella Gianotto herself.

“Inspiration for us comes from everywhere, all the time. It comes from art galleries, magazines, restaurants, artists, musicians, comic books, libraries, street art – it goes on and on,” she says. “We have a graphic designer that is an artist that likes painting abstract portraiture, a web developer that does fashion shoots on the weekend …  We have a dedicated area of our studio for cool books, samples and other ‘cool stuff’ to admire and learn from.” That’s right: the design team have a dedicated cool room to house all their cool paraphernalia. It kind of puts the office water cooler to shame. Ask what the designers have been up to lately and it’s hard to pigeonhole: Gianotto tells us the team recently finished off a brand and packaging line for pet accessories, and are currently working for a balloon decoration company called Balloongram, with a brief to design a van “that will cause accidents.”

“Seriously though we have had requests for really strange things, too strange mention,” Gianotto says. “The most recognisable design briefs that we have designed is the foil packaging for Four Seasons condoms, working with rubber products was fun and the team had a blast,” she says. “We enjoyed the boxes of samples we received at the end of the job.” (Scott Winter & Sophie Tarr)

Lvl 5, 2-12 Foveaux St, Surry Hills. 8217 0000, www.stelladesign.com.au