Characters & Spaces takes one Melbourne city block, peels back its layers of design and tells us the stories behind what we see in our visual environment, things we may pass every day and not think twice about.  Seemingly unrelated things are then connected – a style of lettering, a form of architecture, a time in social history, an art movement or even a long-gone Olympic Games. The Adventure section seeks to involve children in the joy of design through questions and activities.There are 17 sites in all.

A free PDF can be downloaded from the Character website. A printed one can be obtained by emailing us and asking very nicely.

A film of the tour has also been made (we stumbled upon it recently). An interesting interpretation but it misses some of the important sites.

Characters & Spaces is a partnership with the State of Design Festival 2009 and the Communication Design Program at RMIT University.