REINVENTING THE ICONIC TUI
When Recorded Music New Zealand decided to refresh the golden Tui given to VNZMA winners, they went straight to Dick Frizzell
THE ORIGINAL TUI created by Nicola Marshall was first used in 1995.
“At that time I worked for TVNZ at Avalon studios,” said Marshall on the 50th anniversary of the Tuis in 2015.
“Several designers were asked to pitch for the stage design, publicity and event design for the 1995 show. I won the pitch so my award design went into production. The word ‘tui’ was part of the brief as it was going to be known as the Tui awards.”
Marshall speaks highly of sculptor Alex Kennedy of Wellington’s Kennedy Model Making who made the clay prototype from her distinctive design then cast each one individually in bronze.
A second generation of the design was used in 2006 but now Recorded Music NZ felt it was time to refresh it again, and for a new designer every year from now on to put their own stamp on it.
First out of the gate is Auckland-based artist, designer and creative thinker Dick Frizzell who, when approached Recorded Music NZ, jumped at the project.
“In my usual reckless fashion,” he laughs, “the minute they mentioned it on the phone, I thought ‘Wow’. So I started having ideas and by the time they came around the next day I had this little presentation for them.”
Frizzell’s enthusiasm had led down a different route from that which Recorded Music NZ had in mind and he was gently steered back to the brief.
“My first idea was a pretty good design actually and had a swooping Don Binney-ish tui on the top. But they said the idea was to reinterpret the existing trophy. So then I completely switched track and thought the best idea was to kind of bury [the existing design], but in a nice way of course.
“I started filling in the voids then added that extra new element on left to balance up all the action of the right. I started to get this interesting kind of mid-20th century object d’art thing going.
“It almost designed itself to be honest.” The bright and colourful Frizzell trophy comes in a palette not dissimilar to “those Miami colours of white and red... and it did look like a tui funnily enough, with the throat raised up. Then I put the gold in its throat to represent the song. “It all got a bit literal actually!” Frizzell – widely known for his Pop Art creations using Kiwi iconography such as the Four Square man, and his famous Mickey to Tiki work – says it’s exciting that every year someone else will be approached to create their own distinctive Tui. But he notes it probably needs to be offered to creative thinkers rather than just artists.
“A lot of artists are not very good at applied art, so it needs somebody who thinks in design challenges.
“When I’m asked to do something like this, and I get offered some fantastic projects, I don’t take what I do in my art and try to turn it into that. I go at it as a unique challenge.
“It’s a trick I picked up in advertising. Because everything that comes in – one day it might be Bluebird chips and the next a BMW – requires its own solution. “And I seem to be able to do that.” What Frizzell has given his Tui is a vibrancy, visual impact and curvaceousness the previous design didn’t have.
“As soon as I showed it to (Recorded Music) they were totally excited, but then to go from the drawing to getting a company to do just do it? When they brought the prototype around I thought, ‘They’ve actually done it!’ It was incredible.
“And there’s not a hint of compromise there for me. It was one of those jobs that really worked.
“Sometimes things get by on the skin of their teeth, but this one just walked in.”