8 NZB JUNE 2018
TRANSFORMATION
BY DESIGN
THROUGH HIS WELLINGTON-BASED
STUDIO BLACK SLAB, ROBBIE CARMICHAEL
DELIVERS A FRESH, BOLD AND ACCESSIBLE
DESIGN APPROACH FOR BRANDS WANTING
TO STAND OUT – AND HE’S HELPING
OTHERS IN THE PROCESS.F
or Robbie Carmichael, the road to opening
his own design studio may have been long
and winding, but the lessons learnt along the
way have put him in a far better place today
to serve business brands.
As a youngster he always had a love for art and
design; his imagination was encouraged from an
early age. “Everything was possible, nothing was
mere fantasy, and who was anyone to tell me
otherwise?” he remembers.
When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up,
the answer was always “architect”. But life and school
curbed his enthusiasm, and when he left school he held
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banker – the latter teaching him to “never treat people
as numbers on a sales board”.
He VDZFRUSRUDWHVDVVWLÀLQJFUHDWLYLW\DQGNLQGQHVV
and so in 2014 at the age of 25 it was time to go back
to his roots.
Robbie enrolled at Victoria University as a mature
student and completed his design degree at Victoria
University’s School of Architecture and Design.
“Before ,¶GHYHQ¿QLVKHG,NQHZ,¶GQHYHUDJDLQ
be happy working to someone else’s brief,” he says.
“I picked up a pen and began writing a business
plan for Black Slab.”BYGLENN BAKER