Idling menacingly between Lonsdale and Little Bourke Streets is Caledonian Lane – a viperous voodoo Valhalla containing the constant feeling of night. The same eerie backstreet ether that oozes out of Taxi Driver, Bringing out the Dead, and William Friedkin’s Cruising. A blackened, anything-can-happen, twitchy kind of feeling, where sounds become ominous and important.

Defiantly counted among Melbourne’s many hidden wonders, Caledonian is the darkened shooting star on the tourist’s lap of the laneways. But where Hosier Lane is the twinkle in the city’s eye, Caledonian is its kool-aid alter-ego – a candied darkness delight loaded with fangs, lip gloss and love in the gutter.

From heaven to earth there is evil heat and adventure: shoes are strung up and hung by their entrails, elderly hookers swish by in vinyl, speed freaks judder and stutter, lobsters decompose in the gutter. If a DJ cut a sample stealing the spirit of the lane, the leering laughter of Screaming Jay Hawkins would justifiably be jammed on a loop with a snuff film beating on reverb.

A simple pick and roll out of Little Bourke Street reveals the fun-bunker of St Jerome’s. Now closed, the bar is famous for not only being a skin-tight haunt of many Melburnians, but also for spawning its travelling laneway festival which plays through cities across Australia every year. St Jerome’s threw a two week wake/street party to signify the end of its five-year era in March this year.

The closure of St Jerome’s is not the only reverse swing in Caledonian. With boarded up barbershops and every store front laying departed, you see for yourself that the bump and bam and right-hook rumble of Myer’s $500m redevelopment of Lonsdale and Ltl Bourke Streets has the laneway on the run.

It is estimated that by final throws of 2012 Caledonian will have been redeveloped and the laneway will no longer exist as we see it today. Instead, it will populated by truck parks and loading bays. No stories, no life, no artwork, no dice.

If Melburnians went nuts and began hanging prosthetics instead of Nike Airs and pairs of stolen T-Lands, Caledonian Lane is probably where it would be. Unfortunately, it may be the life and death of this laneway that the streets could be celebrating.

Reviewed: November 2009

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Collection made in Melbourne

Peering through the window was a little like looking into a wonderland that was half Alice and half Yellow Submarine: in the window itself, felt sculptures in white, red, pink and orange resembled a sea of deformed eyes, while beyond it, past the shelves displaying pale ceramics and misshaped wood, a neon world of string, fur and splattered paint unfolded like a fantastical volcanic eruption.

For anyone still under the illusion that craft is boring, I’d recommend a visit to Craft Victoria. This shop-cum-gallery is among the most beautiful spaces in Melbourne: its bright, welcoming rooms are filled with the creations of local designers and makers. Each object here is part of the city, a tangible piece of its individuality, and, for me, what’s between these walls is a big part of what makes Melbourne such a great place to live.

This is a subject close to my heart, as I’ve always invested so much of myself into the objects around me. Many hold memories of a person or place and others just make me happy, but the things I surround myself with all say a little something about who I am. I love that objects tell a story.

Along with antiques and vintage, handmade objects are the best storytellers. Their stories begin as an idea, or a word, or a joke, and work their way through a person’s mind until they are crafted into reality. Before they even reach a shelf they are imbued with thoughts and memories, a shadow of their maker and the experiences that led them to create in the first place.

Luckily for us, Melbourne is full of people making their stories. Each object and each story will appeal to different people, but the ones that get me excited are those told with playfulness and humour: I like to see the funny side of things and so I surround myself with objects that bring a smile to my face. Even better if they make me giggle like a lunatic.

Brands such as Limedrop have mastered the cute/funny aesthetic, with their range of wooden necklaces and pop-out earrings in the shapes of paper planes, dinosaurs, and sinking ships. Birds and forest animals in particular are popular muses and can be seen across a huge number of ranges in every colour, shape and material; Prudence and Horatio do it very well, cutting out vintage pictures of native birds, putting them on rubber backing and coating them with resin to give them a shiny, glass-like finish.

Jewellery is the most common medium, and within that it is the brooches, badges and buttons that most consistently tickle my funny bone. The Philos-o-face brooches (also by Prudence and Horatio creator Prudence Rees-Lee) are great, featuring the faces of well-quoted philosophers such as Nietzsche and Socrates. With a Philos-o-face or two in your collection you can, in the words of the Prudence, “Put your thinking face on,” whenever you please. Who wouldn’t want that?

While there are an obscene number of people making things that feature lovable critters, there are also those who are doing things no one else is. Lisa Kearns, who works under the brand name Kearnsie, has created badges that are not only funny and sweet but have the potential to break down social barriers. Her colourful ‘Hello’ badges are a play on name tags, but instead say things like ‘Hello, I like to skim stones and take long walks in the park’. There’s a feeling of vulnerability about them that is inherently charming.

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The Atrium, Federation Square

It’s just gone dark and the sound of music and voices floats into the room from the streets below, bringing a bit of the city’s energy into this bright and quiet space. Outside, the sharp angles of Federation Square are softened by movement as people gather and depart; once just a piece of design, it is now firmly embedded in the life and culture of the city.Inside, a far smaller part of Melbourne’s design culture sits on shelves and tables in neatly arranged displays.

This is the studio of Tim Fleming, an artist and designer who makes objects that are part sculpture, part ornament and part artwork: oversized hands and mirrored OK signs, trees toppled over by wind, clouds pouring out rain, green clovers and wooden acorns, world maps, words and tiny restless figures.

This is where design begins. All over the city there are people bent over their desks, pouring themselves into the projects that ultimately make Melbourne the vibrant, creative place that it is.

Anyone who’s ever wandered around the CBD will have seen the extent to which design has filtered into our culture. Look up on Higson Lane and see a colourful light box taking the piss out of celebrity. Glance down any other alley and there may be a bulging brick wall, or a stairway to nowhere, or a chandelier strung between two buildings like a discarded piece of bling.

There are buildings shaped like honeycomb and ones that are so mesmerisingly shiny and golden in the afternoon they make driving downright dangerous. Everywhere shop windows taunt us with their beauty and cause us to walk around in a stupor with a bagful of things we never intended to buy.

We are literally encased in design. Of course, there’s nowhere on earth that isn’t. People are unavoidably creative, and since we stopped being monkeys (and perhaps even before) we have designed things to make our lives better and easier.

So what does a city have to do to be bestowed with the label ‘design city’?

For starters, a design culture can never expand and thrive if the government doesn’t recognise the importance of design and make it a priority. In Berlin, one of the six cities named a ‘City of Design’ by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, the State has worked closely with design leaders to establish trend-setting trade fairs and festivals, set up creative centres, coaching programs and workshops, and funds such as the Venture Capital Fund, which devotes its €30 million (AU$50 million) budget to financing and supporting the creative sector.

In Montreal, another UNESCO City of Design, the city aims to use design to improve the quality of life of its citizens and inspire people to participate in making their environments better and more liveable.

One program that is doing just that is Commerce Design Montreal, an annual competition that rewards the businesses that best improve their interior design and bring it into harmony with what’s around them. As well as creating many more cool places for people to go, it has revitalised entire neighbourhoods and brought design well and truly into the public focus. As the city said in its UNESCO application, ‘design in Montreal is not simply for show but a source of daily well-being.’

A city must embrace both of these approaches to be truly successful as a design city. It’s not enough to throw a bit of money at design and hope to see it contribute to the economy. It must also be about creating an environment that people want to be in, stimulating people creatively and intellectually, providing new experiences and generally improving the liveability of the city as a whole.

Light box, Higson Lane

Does the Victorian government stack up? They have certainly recognised the importance of design, having established Design Victoria, a resource and training organisation, and created the Victorian Innovation Strategy, but the primary concern with these is increasing the competitiveness and profitability of Victoria’s design sector, not adding to the design culture in a meaningful way.

Take Melbourne’s trams. In addition to being the biggest consumer of trams in the world, trams are inextricably linked to Melbourne’s identity. They feature in our advertising, our postcards and our news programs. They are a big draw for visitors and are part of the daily life of many of the city’s residents. But are they designed or made here? No – we import all our trams from Europe.

The State government likes to say Melbourne is a world-class design city, yet they ignore the opportunity to truly own one of our icons and bring it into the 21st century.

To give them their due, they do support a number of excellent creative endeavours, such as The Melbourne Design Guide, the State of Design Festival (run through Design Victoria) and other events with design elements such as the Fringe Festival, but it seems that the government is far more interested in cultivating an image of Melbourne as the cool, sophisticated design city rather than using design to add value to the lives of the people who live here.

The most obvious form of design in any city is its architecture, and in the last decade in particular many interesting structures have sprung up both in the city centre and in outlying areas. But according to Paul Charlwood, founder of the Melbourne Design Guide and Creative Director of Charlwood Design, this doesn’t make Melbourne stand out. ‘Melbourne has a lot of nice buildings, but everyone’s doing that,’ he says. If Melbourne is a design city, then it is in a smaller, more individual sense; the ‘dirt under the fingernails,’ as Paul puts it.

Melbourne does have a lot of dirt. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), most of it seems to be found in the city’s cracks and crevices: in the alleys and laneways, the old buildings, the arcades and rooftops. These places are Melbourne, filled both with the creative energy of working artists and designers and the stores, cafés and bars that give the city its distinct atmosphere and personality.

No city could even hope to be a city of design without having a significant number of people out there actually creating things. And it’s not enough for governments to encourage design, either; there must be people working on a grassroots level to introduce design into the community. In Melbourne, these are the people who set up and participate in all the markets and design events, who create zines and independent publications, who start labels and set up shops, who build, draw and make, who exhibit their work and bring their art onto the streets.

This is what makes design exciting and accessible, drawing public attention and interest to a field that traditionally has not been interesting to very many people.

People are starting to care more about design (as the attendance figures for July’s Design Festival show) but there are still many things holding Melbourne’s design culture back. Unlike Europe, where there are bigger markets, bigger companies and far more design organisations, designers and makers here often have to do the whole process, from design to manufacture, themselves, with little support and no guarantee that people will buy the product at the end.

However desirable handmade items may be to the consumer, it is not a profitable business. Without sizeable local manufacturers, designers have to take their business offshore or, in the case of independent craftspeople, spend a lot of their time simply making things, leaving less time to come up with new ideas and develop their brand.

These things aren’t all bad, however. Being so remote means Australia isn’t as influenced by what other people are doing as they are in Europe. Much of our originality is derived from this geographical quirk. There are also far less regulations here than in Europe, creating a culture where, according to Charlwood, ‘anything goes’.

In many ways Melbourne has the best of both worlds. The city is a lively, exciting place but it still manages to keep a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. It’s big enough to have lots of different things to discover but small enough that it retains a sense of intimacy. The climate is cold enough to encourage creativity but not so cold that it makes life difficult.

Melbourne Design Market

A big part of Melbourne’s uniqueness also comes from the ‘Australian lifestyle’ that politicians always refer to in their speeches. It’s not all hot air. People here are generally pretty friendly, with the wonderful self-deprecating humour that makes it easy to engage with strangers and not take things too seriously.

Design in Melbourne may still in the developing stage, but there are a few areas that we have long been recognised to excel in. The quality of the jewellery program at RMIT has produced many of the country’s most renowned jewellers, many of whom have become hot commodities on the international art and design scene. Melbourne is also well known for the quality of its fashion designers, with some talented people, such as Toni Maticevski and Bettina Liano, being elevated to the elite world of high fashion.

The best thing about Melbourne’s design scene, however, is that it is focused on locals. The government made the mistake in the 80s of getting big international names to come do buildings in the CBD (the former version of Melbourne Central, for example) and it added nothing to the city; since then, the majority of projects have been designed and built by local companies.

To paraphrase Leon van Schaik, a prominent figure in Melbourne’s architectural world, cities only become design cities when they nurture local creativity, not when they import great works from elsewhere.

So, is Melbourne a design city? Maybe. Maybe not. It is a sufficiently vague term to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. But who really cares. Melbourne is full of creative, determined individuals who are constantly shaping and reshaping the forms, sights and sounds of the city, allowing the rest of us to be surprised and delighted (or shocked and unimpressed) at what people come up with. There is always something new. In the end, labels are meaningless. It is what people experience that really matters.

“There’s more to Melbourne than this alley…”
- One man mumbling to another, Hosier Lane, August, 2009

Cool, cluttered and collected, Hosier Lane is one of Melbourne’s most obvious attractions. But unlike many of the city’s hidden or long-reaching laneways, Hosier provides an easily accessible example of how the council allows Melbourne’s minds to wander.

Framed at the Flinders Street end by the minaret of the Forum and lined with piss-addled doorways, the majority of the laneway’s allure arrives from its seductive sangria of street art: cartoons, shrooms, vampire faces, Brixton briefcase, girls, monsters and ninjas, laughing skulls and skeletal hugs. The lassoed layers of filth, tags and rags providing an uplifting array of stories, rhymes and lullabies to paralyse.

The art inside Hosier is part of the skunk works that is Citylights projects; an initiative run by Andrew Mac designed to corkscrew the concrete jungle into a series of street level canvasses fit for free public viewing.

The majority of the artwork is commissioned and/or approved by Citylights, with one of the key elements being the light boxes which are updated approximately every ten weeks. Due to the gonzo nature of graffiti, unauthorized work often appears, but that’s partly the point – without it the lane would be rat trapped and shackled. Citylight’s hard work in Hosier has earned the lane a reputation as one of Australia’s most important cultural attractions.

Halfway along Hosier is Rutledge Lane; a surrealistic Super Mario shoot off that sucks in the soul through a cluster bomb of creativity before cutting them adrift at the opposite end of the laneway. It is here that you find Until Never.

As an additional component of the Citylight’s process, the Until Never gallery regularly displays work from emerging underground artists located all over Australia. The theme is loose, experimental, conceptual, and never cut from main cloth. Until Never is open Wednesday-Saturday afternoons.

Hosier’s only bar, Misty, is one of those all-look and no-touch kind of rooms. Enticing, playful and teasing from the outside, slightly underwhelming on the inside. Tapas joint, MoVida, fills the laneway with saccharine scents of Spanish verandas, and with its señorita artwork, the restaurant and its speed freak kitchen adds a little light to the dark end of the street.

Weekends commonly see the laneway saturated with sound and fury: hot rods running and gunning their engines, drag queens fumbling with cell phones, street carp giggling in leather, bass notes rumbling from rooftops. The lane never tires, never ceases, always advances, always unleashes.

There may be more to Melbourne than the life that lies living and breathing in this alley, but for a newcomer it’s the starting gun for a sprint through the artistic side of the city. A way to engage and acquire, a direction to point and shoot – a tourist’s hand rail to hades, if you will.

One ugly day some greedhead might cunningly decide to glass off the daylight, brick up the entrance, charge a fee for exhibit and gain riches from canned free expression. Until that day, Hosier Lane will continue to marvel.

Reviewed: August, 2009

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Perennial and enduring, Tattersalls Lane has long been an icon of Melbourne cool: conflicted, cultured – east meets west. A shabby-looking scion that shoots off the busy Little Bourke St, it’s set right in the heart of Chinatown’s cluttered, messy furore. A sharp, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it left turn leads the unwary into typical, high-bricked walls lined with smatterings of old event posters.

Gaylord’s restaurant is the first thing you’ll notice – if not for the eye-catching name, then the bizarre photo terrace foyer – and works as an apt indication that, as an Indian restaurant in the heart of China Town, Tattersalls Lane is one that doesn’t care much for convention. Further north is underdog restaurant Shanghai Noodle House, tired and vacant from playing second fiddle to the maddening, loud genius of its main competition, Shanghai Dumpling.

Most Melburnians are all too aware of Shanghai Dumpling’s charm and allure – it’s evidenced clearly by the snaking queues on Friday and Saturday nights. The place is lit like a Kmart, the service is terrible (don’t take it personally), but the food is fantastic. It’s cheap, too: the frugal diner often walks out well-fed for a fiver (sans beer, of course).

But it’s the little things that make Shanghai Dumpling worth it: the over-zealous doorman Jimmy – whose vocabulary extends only to numbers and his volume set only to ‘bracingly loud’; the awful covers of forgotten 90s popular music, or worse, butchered classics; and, of course, the offensively loud, conversation-disturbing ‘happy birthday’ song – so annoyingly hilarious that it always prompts diners to dob their friends in. Shanghai Dumpling is an institution, really, and one that, to its credit, refuses to change albeit its popularity. Here’s hoping it never does.

Tattersalls Lane’s next surprise is Section 8. A renovated car park, it’s a corrugated, rusty and effortlessly cool iron jungle, right down to the mesh fence, the mess of steel girders and the bar – a hacked, painted shipping container. All this is softened with clever oriental touches, as statues, parasols and lanterns sit, spring and hang around the wooden pallet seats. These are sprinkled with cushions and make for a surprisingly comfortable, unique Melbourne bar experience. Like neighbour Shanghai Dumpling, it too may be a victim of its own popularity; if you intend to make it your bar on a Friday or Saturday night, get there early.

Pass over Stevenson Lane – there a few interesting pieces of street art, but ultimately, its focus is waste disposal – walk up through the evergreen walls and suddenly you’re at Lonsdale St, a world away from where you just were: a little avenue of contradiction, juxtaposition and a reminder of what it is, after all, what makes Melbourne great.

Reviewed: May 2009

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From its dignified bluestone pavement to its antiquated nineteenth century buildings, Bank Pl is perhaps Melbourne’s most handsome laneway. In fact, it’s so impressive, so beautiful, that’d you be forgiven for thinking you’ve just rounded the corner into Europe.

There’s the lamp posts – standing in a neat row, forged from elegant iron and entwined with peeling gold laurels – the beautiful Charter House – its title engraved carefully above the majestic building’s entrance – and plenty of places to sit underneath whispering plane trees as you watch the business crowd pour in for after-work drinks.

Undoubtedly, Bank Pl’s most spectacular feature is its pub – the Mitre Tavern. Situated on Mitre La – one of Bank Pl’s many cul-de-sacs – it’s a tidy, double-story, English-style drinking hole that sits underneath the looming resplendence of Collins Street’s prominent buildings.

The date of its construction is unclear, though it was at least prior to 1850, apparently. Officially, the pub was coined ‘The Mitre Tavern’ in 1867, and has been serving beer and food ever since. According to its menu, it’s the oldest building in Melbourne – which makes drinking in the large beer garden a reflective affair, as one imagines what the pub has seen as Melbourne rose from the ground around it.

Up the lane, there’re some apartments (the residents of which have decorated the steel stairs appended with splashes of green plants), an underground bar called Marakech, and a decent café on the corner that’s worth it just for the chance to have a coffee in the lane outside.

For true Melbourne grandeur, nothing beats Bank Pl.

Reviewed: December 2008.

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Gone are the disjointed, eccentric facades that typify so many of Melbourne’s alleys – this is Equitable Pl: sleek, modern, and alluring.

Situated near the corner of Collins and Elizabeth, the laneway is sandwiched between two corporate monoliths. Its entrance has been refashioned to smother its incongruity, and, as such, you’d be forgiven for presuming this alley was now the foyer into the large headquarters that surround it.

Once you pass through the corridor – windows into Henry Bucks and other upscale stores – you’ll notice how much you feel you’re in the city. The Commonwealth Bank building looms ahead of you, you’re surrounded by coats and scarves – it’s as though you’re walking through the pipeline of Melbourne’s corporate machine. Equitable Pl is a laneway that means business.

The proliferation of functional alleys can’t really bad a bad thing, however, as business has paved the way (literally) for a laneway that does host some surprises.

There are a dozen shops – boutiques, eateries, and more – that cater to mixed clientele. Equitable Pl thrives on its lunch business, proving a tempting distraction to businessmen and women that descend from above Melbourne’s skyline. Cheap eats are surprisingly easy to come across, however, and the cuisine varied.

There’s Monster Burger – as advertised by the hapless costumed pamphlet-bearing employee on Elizabeth’s corner; and Spudbar – the healthy baked potato dispenser growing a good reputation.

As surrounded as you are by formalist aesthetics – Equitable Pl’s dignified lines are smooth but not extravagant – there’s comfort in that mismatched flight of fire escape stairs that climb the buildings above, and reassurance in the littered blind alley that your eye isn’t supposed to see. You can sanitize a Melbourne laneway all you like, but you can’t completely extinguish its charm.

Equitable Pl is, at its core, an enjoyable exercise in measured interference.

Reviewed: September 2008

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It’s unassuming, bedraggled, and the purest form of cul-de-sac. Carson Pl is one of Melbourne’s more barren alleys, and, to an extent, rightfully overlooked. But like most of Melbourne’s labyrinthine laneways, you can’t define them by their contents alone, and Carson Pl is more than the sum of its parts.

Situated just off Little Collins St, and surrounded by more luminary gallerias like Howey Pl, Carson Pl is relatively innocuous. There’re a few rubbish skips, a collection of colourful milk crates that double as chairs, and the usual assortment of pigeons and rats. The handful of shops that choose to make their home in Carson Pl are so discreetly hidden that almost don’t want to be found; only one, Donuts Deluxe, really bothers attract customers.

Ben, the co-proprietor, has recently opened the shop – a garage-sized roller door compartment that brings to mind those on Degraves – to satisfy the need of Melbourne’s burgeoning independent street-skate industry. His store, previously tenanted by a failed cufflink trader, doubles as a place of business and design studio, cobbled together with a relaxed philosophy of anti-exclusivity.

Next to him is an old barber, with whom Ben and the Donut boys have a good rapport; a loading bay; and the smallest of thoroughfares into the anomalous, commercial resplendence of Australia on Collins. A run of windows from an upscale clothes store play light against the wall as the city winds down, allowing Carson Pl the briefest of moment of romance before the shop closes for the night.

While the littered, graffiti-riddled degeneracy of Carson Pl is a daily reality, it’s as though Donuts Deluxe is leading its artistic revival; supposedly in its heyday the alley played host to several publications that lived above the lockers we see today.

Perhaps we can look forward to further artistic upswings as Melbourne’s laneway explosion rockets forth, but for now, at least, drop into Donuts Deluxe for a chat, or grab a haircut – but it remains a lane to watch.

Reviewed: July 2008

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From its offshoot byway Howey Place, Presgrave Place is little more than a hook shaped alley, littered with rubbish skips. It’s conspicuous in its very nature – if you don’t take the time to look, you won’t be rewarded.

Off the steely, handsome revere of Howey, Presgrave is like walking through the very border of Melbourne’s increasingly widespread social-cataclysm. Pigeons peck at your feet as you look to admire the unusual street art – photo frames that hang fragmentarily alongside the laneway’s left wall. According to local workers, they were affixed one night without any explanation.

Presgrave is all pallid greys splashed with colour; a speck of bright orange here, a slither of green there. An unusual staircase feels oddly fastened to the right wall, perhaps a consequence of an afterthought. It’s uncovered, dangerous and slippery, but has an innate slap-dash charm.

Presgrave’s major highlight is Pushka, a cafe/bar so small it can only be spotted by a few 50s-style deco steel chairs that, on winter days, reel against a cold breeze. Inside, Pushka is cramped yet comfortable. The friendly staff are always in the mood for a chat, and the music is neither too loud nor straight-laced. It’s the kind of place that thrives on its regulars – if you frequent the cafe enough you’ll begin to have your orders pre-empted with a wry, knowing smile. These guys enjoy their job.

Most importantly: their coffee is delicious. Pushka has pride in its cup-o-joe; you’re not getting a rushed on-the-clock franchisee with an eye on the handbook here.

The only setback is in procuring a table – with its floor space it’s not hard to see why – though half the fun is donning your coat and scarf and drinking a coffee outside.

The place turns into a cheery bar at night, where, if you’re lucky, you’ll witness a stream of underagers crying with protest as they’re helplessly ejected from the Hi-Fi Bar’s backdoor. Currently, their license extends to 11pm, though things are set to change with new (but understanding) management. It’s in safe hands – Jerome (of St. Jerome’s, Sister Bella fame) has charged himself with the task of improving Pushka without damaging its cutesy-cluttered spirit.

Presgrave is a welcome retreat from the city’s intoxicating hubbub. Within a stones throw of Swanston St – its energy driving and palpable – you’re in quiet sanctuary: the only reminder of the city’s pace is the occasional clutter of dishes in adjacent kitchens.

Reviewed: July 2008

Photo © Al Wilson, 2008

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Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to Laneway.

If you’ve just stumbled in off the street, we’re happy to have you. Whether this a misguided Google search for a better-known music festival, or the product of a tip from a mate, we’re glad you shrugged your shoulders and clicked. The same goes to friends and contributors who have been dragged through the creation process for many months now. We hope you like it.

In the future, this space will carry something with a little more substance, but we thought it fitting to dedicate the very first article in the very first issue to a welcome; to usher in friends, new and old, and find them comfy seats; to explain a little about what we’re doing, and where we’re headed. Self indulgent? Perhaps. But this is our moment, so hear us out.

To know where you’re going, you’ve got to know where you’ve come from. And Laneway’s back-story is a combination of youthful vigour, severe unemployment, and a conversation in an inner-city apartment over a few too many beers. ‘You like Melbourne too?! We should totally write about it!’

The chatty duo in question, Chris Hawthorne and Luke McKenna, became your adoring editors. The former has a degree in film and television and a knack for design (don’t you think?), and the latter qualifications in journalism. But what they share – the true force behind Laneway – is a passion for Melbourne.

So too does the ensemble of writers, photographers and creative minds who have gathered to produce the magazine – a group that extends far beyond the names listed on the site. And we can’t thank them all enough for offering their time, talents and teachings.

We hope you can find something special, enjoyable and exciting in our combined efforts. We aim to bring you the most intriguing Melbourne coverage: unique insights and perspectives, thoughtful commentary, and our special pick of events. Articles you won’t find anywhere else.

We are small, but we like to think we’re able to punch above our weight. This relies on grassroots support from contributors who know Melbourne. If you would like to get involved – and you’re sincerely welcome – we’re only a click away.

In case you’re wondering, Laneway is still planned, written, edited and published from the same city apartment to which it owes its inebriated inception. It’s the magazine’s heart, in a way – windowing out over a filthy alley, and inspirationally neighboured by the best and worst the city has to offer.

The daylight bustle of local characters and whiffs of coffee, and late-night sounds of smashing bottles, seedy alleyway drug deals and shrieking arguments are our motivators – an everyday reminder of the cultural highs and lows we intend to cover.

So once again, welcome. Grab a drink, relax, and have a chat to the blogs. Soak up the culture. The reviews are downstairs, and the gallery is to your right. Enjoy.

Eds.

Photos courtesy of Al Wilson