Abstracted organica: The design trend taking root in Naarm, and the designers doing it best

For a place that’s often described as an urban grid, Naarm holds an intimate relationship with the natural world. Is a sharehouse complete without a monstera? Are birthdays real if they’re not celebrated in Edinburgh or Carlton Gardens? After hitting 30, should I be swapping the club for the Dandenong Ranges? Do I take up climbing?!

Jokes aside, we are fortunate to live in a city where nature feeds through everyday life, and, more importantly, to exist/live/work/create on land whose First Nations peoples have maintained a profound and continuous connection to Country for tens of thousands of years. There is beauty all around us and endless inspiration to draw from it.

If you pause for a hot minute you’ll see it everywhere, especially through a design lens. The ridges of eucalyptus bark, the geometries of shell formations, moss-covered trees, Indigenous grasslands and the hidden networks of fungi beneath the soil. These landscapes produce organic yet abstract patterns – natural systems that quietly shape the way we see and design the world around us.

Pair this connection to nature with a design-forward city full of creatives and the resurgence of late-90s to early-2000s Y2K aesthetics and you get abstracted organica – a descriptor I’m coining because, how else would you put it?

It feels like we’re peeling away from chromey futuristic graphics while still holding onto their structural logic. The super polished metallic surfaces meld into organic forms, fluid, full of imperfections, like a real organism. It’s a collision of styles: futuristic but natural, digital but tactile.

I sit pretty heavily within the dance music scene, so that’s where much of my perspective comes from. But it’s hard to deny how deeply this visual language has seeped into everyday design and self-expression. You see it walking down the street, abstract art pieces wrapped around the arms of every young person (I’m talking about tattoos, of course), outfits acting like natural gradients, layering earth tones and palettes pulled from landscapes rather than screens.

There are probably deeper reasons behind the shift. Maybe it’s a reaction against rigidity and the crisp feel of the digital and AI age. Maybe it’s a pull toward warmth and texture, visual languages that feel more human and connected to the real world. Whatever the reason, the aesthetic offers a kind of freedom. It softens structures, embraces imperfection, and reconnects design with organic forms. And at the end of the day, it just looks cool… Nature is fresh.

Adam Price @thisisurneighbour

One artist who perfectly embodies this style is thisisurneighbour, also known as Adam Price. Based in Naarm, Adam is a tattoo artist whose work blends the ethereal with the natural. Their pieces often echo waves, suns, flowers and butterflies, but with a futuristic twist – designs that feel both organic and otherworldly.

Adam’s body of work is impressive, with each piece conveying its own unique character. What really stands out is the way their designs move with the body. Shapes wrap and flow across the skin in a way that makes each piece feel like it was always meant to be there, which is something really special.

To me, it’s obvious that Adam’s work is a result of dedication to craft / process. Looking back at some of their early work, you can see the beginnings of their style through flash sheets of shells and other natural themes, illustrated with delicate line and dotwork. Over time, that visual language has evolved into the refined, mystical aesthetic they’re now known for.

Adam’s influence on the city’s visual landscape is immense. I’d challenge you to go to almost any creative event in Naarm and not spot one of their tattoos in the room. Alongside tattooing, Adam also creates merch, prints, poster art and cover artwork, extending their artistry beyond the skin and into wider creative scenes.

Nicholas Marriott @nicholaspjm

Another space where this style flourishes is the TouchDesigner scene, where one of its pillars in Naarm is Nicholas Marriott. Nicholas works with real-time systems and live coding, exploring how digital artworks shape our understanding of space and interaction. Rather than handing technology to the corporate overlords, his work reclaims these systems as hyper-creative tools, encouraging human connection through dream-like pieces.

Nicholas shifts between the geometric and the organic, at times leaning into the grid-like, techier realm of TouchDesigner, and at others into hypnotising formations that reflect patterns in wind or cellular growth. He creates generative visualisers that feel alive, like roots spreading or spores dispersing, mimicking processes seen in nature. While it’s easy in TouchDesigner to get lost in a sea of neon (trust me, I’ve been there), Nicholas grounds his pieces with earthy tones of ashy blues, browns, black and grey. These palettes make his visualisers immersive without being overwhelming. They enhance spaces rather than dominate them, resulting in genuinely beautiful works of art.

Looking at Nicholas’ body of work you can see he is busy and sought after on the festival circuit, which makes sense. His style resonates with the bush / country as much as it does galleries or clubs... maybe even more so? Recent collaborations, including a music video for Nine Inch Nails, show his success growing quickly and rightfully so, sitting at the intersection of technology and elegant design.

Felix Sandvoß @felix_sandvoss

Not based in Naarm but responsible for some of its most recent iconic design pieces in the underground scene, Felix Sandvoß is a graphic and type designer working primarily with analogue, hands-on techniques. Across his projects you’ll find unique letterforms that are playful, imperfect, and invite the viewer into a warm, slightly wonky visual world. Over the last few years, his work for Unsend, a New Year’s festival hosted by Kia, Kasun, OK EG and Paper-Cuts, was particularly show-stopping, or maybe… scroll-stopping? The logo alone captured the essence of the event, reflecting both its musical identity and its natural environment.

Felix’s posters for the festival and its afterparties were just as compelling. Unconventional layouts and unexpected colour combinations gave the designs a playful sense of intrigue. It’s easy to see why these visuals resonated with Naarm’s underground scene. They mirror the landscape of a good festival in the bush, where the music and environment start to melt together.

Using organic structures to build elegant typography isn’t new territory for Felix. You see it across much of his work, where spirals, skews and waves become the foundations of entire typefaces. Still, seeing it applied with this level of refinement felt new to me, and it was a joy to watch the artistry unfold.

Closer Look

Gabriella shares a spectrum of local Naarm creatives to follow and buy from / donate to, including a jeweller, a radio station, a graphic designer for music, and a potter.

• Perlina Eterea is the brainchild of local jeweller Nagina Salah, whose adornments feel poetic and imperfect yet incredibly refined. Her pieces are designed to complement the body as much as they decorate it. Working with beads, pearls, and large looped silver chaining, Nagina offers a custom commission process so each piece can be tailored to you.

• Skylab Radio is an independent online radio station based in Naarm, broadcasting a wide spectrum of underground music, and experimental sounds from local and international artists. Skylab’s main goal is to give space to music and ideas that don’t always get heard, celebrating the weird, the eclectic, and the unexpected. Now is the perfect time to donate to this wonderful station, keep the music alive!

• Zachariah Amos Kouyate is a graphic designer specialising in poster and cover art within the music industry. His work is defined by high contrast, high movement, and layered textures, often incorporating angled typography to create dynamic compositions. Each piece feels like a visual playground for the viewer, bold, and full of energy. Zach is also a DJ under the name Zjoso and founder of the incredible event series Tribqu.

• Local legend Chris Ellis is a talented potter based in Naarm, creating vessels and forms often accented with sweet painted details. He regularly shares pottery for sale on instagram, but get in quick, they go fast! With a background in music and painting, Chris treats ceramics as a playground for his creativity. He also teaches at Bisque Studios (Northcote) and SoCA (Brunswick), spreading the love for pottery in his wonderfully mellow way.