**Note from Finders Keepers – It breaks our market hearts to advise our community that our Autumn Winter Sydney Event will not be going ahead on the proposed dates due to this global pandemic. Please refer to full
COVID-19 Statement to stay up to date.
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Introducing The Finders Keepers Artist Recipient for Autumn Winter 2020 – Post & Co! Celebrating Australia’s design culture, Sonia of Post & Co wanted to create artwork that is a celebration of Australia and the things that make us so unique! You can also check out all our past Feature Artist’s work on Pinterest.

Post & Co was born from the Finders Keepers timely offer to be a Feature Artist! Having designed the abstracted architectural products for Footpath Guides which have featured at 2019 Finders Keepers Markets Sonia decided it was time to take the leap into her own business with Post & Co. She’s now discovered an outlet for many ideas that have been bubbling away while working at her day job at the Design Democracy

We are thrilled to have Post & Co join us for the full Finders Keepers Autumn Winter tour and we can’t wait to share more of Sonias work as she creates. Read on to discover more of Sonia’s journey as an artist and her shared love of our unique cities! 

It was such a pleasure to have Footpath Guides join Finders Keepers for the first time in Melbourne and Sydney last year. Can you share your experience?

Thank you for having us! It was an amazing experience. Being able to see and hear people’s response to our work first hand was invaluable. The designs were the culmination of over a year’s work, we hadn’t shown the collection to anyone so it was very much our debut in the truest sense of the word! We were blown away by the positive response. It can be hard to test ideas with family and friends and get honest feedback, Finders Keepers allowed us to engage with our audience and learn what worked and didn’t work. As designers much of our life is spent quietly developing ideas in isolation, catapulting those ideas into the world can be daunting but is the only way to let go of your work and keep moving.

Finders Keepers loves our host cities! Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne are so individual and we are so excited to see Post & Co bring them to life as AW2020 Feature Artist. Tell us about the inspiration and process behind the artwork and what sets each apart? 

We love Australia and as designers, we are also acutely aware of our own Australian point of difference and wanted to celebrate it. We tried to explore our cities in a new way, by deconstructing the architecture of our capital cities we are able to explore a new visual vernacular that is very different to the usual tourist items available. Australian cities are relatively young when compared to international iconic cities, these artworks explore the architectural eras that mix together to make our own unique Australian cultural identity. When we were designing the series we had one eye on the tourism market, but also our other eye heavily focused on the local market. We want Australians to be proud of our design culture, and to make artwork available that is a celebration of Australia and the things that make us different.

We want Australians to be proud of our design culture, and to make artwork available that is a celebration of Australia and the things that make us different.

Why is it so important for Post & Co to share Australia’s cities through art?

The tourism world is filled with realistic imagery and illustrations of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane’s iconic buildings, for me it was important to see if we could take a different approach and create bold and colourful artwork that is locally designed and produced. We wanted to design products that locals and tourists would respond to, promoting our iconic heritage architecture both within Australia and globally. Using colour, geometry and architectural shapes we were able to build a collection of imagery that is a cultural and historic mash-up of our built environments. 

What is your studio like and what does a typical studio day look like for you? Are you a coffee or tea person?

Coffee coffee coffee! Our workday starts with a giant plunger of coffee, we choose some music and get stuck into our morning. The studio made a tree change a few years back, we work from heritage-listed bluestone stables in the centre of a small country town. We’re only an hour from Melbourne however I really love the peaceful feeling of separation the move has made. We’re intrinsically linked to the world through social media and the internet, but by sitting outside the big city bubble we’re able to pursue our own direction more freely. You can drop in and out of the big creative consciousness, be aware of what’s happening in the world but also live on a more micro level and concentrate on your own projects that you think will make a difference. 

You can drop in and out of the big creative consciousness, be aware of what’s happening in the world but also live on a more micro level and concentrate on your own projects that you think will make a difference. 

Can you tell us about your creative journey and your hopes for Post & Co? What do you love about being an illustrator/artist and how has your work shaped this?

Post & Co is an Australian art and design collective working to benefit people and planet. As graphic designers, we love visualising concepts to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, or capture people’s attention. Our full range of products will be released throughout 2020, we’re wanting to use our work to support organisations like the Climate Council and Australian Wildlife Conservancy. I love that my career as a designer is constantly evolving, it is never static and informed by both global and local events and trends. Post & Co allows great creative freedom to develop products that may challenge convention or look at issues from a different angle. All designed and produced locally, with a small footprint and hopefully big impact. 

Post & Co will be joining Finders Keepers on the Finders Keepers AW20 tour! What can shoppers expect to discover and connect with?

We can’t wait! We will have a range of art, homewares and objects all inspired by simplicity, colour and geometry. See you very soon!