Libby Travers

I ran the Produce Awards for both Vogue Entertaining + Travel and delicious. Magazine for four years. During that time I built an extremely reputable and well-respected industry event. The calibre of producers that entered every year, the judges involved, guests attending and general media attention created around each year served as a testament to this.  

My role was to seek out the best primary producers in Australia. I built a strong relationship with many of these producers. Each year I also researched and compiled the shortlist of Australia’s best farmers’ markets, slow food advocates, culinary regions and chefs showcasing regional produce.

I co-ordinated the judging days, compiling and writing detailed background information on the producers and working with the judges to determine the results.

Over the four years I ran the awards I introduced the process of seasonal judging, developed the state-based judging, introduced the farmers’ market award and created a partnership with Slow Food for the sustainability and heritage award, culminating in a lunch with Carlo Petrini in Sydney.

The charcuterie pig was inspired by an amazing French animation called Dans le cochon tout set bon (you can watch it here). Each item of charcuterie is hung in relation to the cut on the pig. 

Photography by Jason Loucas.

While working at Vic's Premium Quality Meat I wrote all the content for Ask the Butcher, an award-winning i-Phone Application.

I co-managed the design, build and launch of the application. I have a solid understanding of best practice in regards to mobile Apps from a user experience, content and visual perspective. 

This window was all whimsy. A carton of eggs painting each other in preparation for Easter. Half the eggs were dressed as butchers/artists, while the others were painted in bright colours. Some of the eggs had escaped and were hiding around the kitchen scene. The more you looked the more you saw. 

Painting the eggs was a pain-staking exercise and I was incredibly fortunate to have the help of my beautiful friends and local artists Joe, Chanelle, Yoko and (another) Joe. You can see some of their work on their respective websites:

www.joewilsonblog.blogspot.com.au
www.chanellecollier.wordpress.com

Photography by Jason Loucas.

Spring lamb is the butcher's default position. I wanted to do something a little more evocative of the new season. 

Inspired by a still life oil paintings I wanted to create the ultimate kitchen bench in spring. 

Photography by Jason Loucas.

Ask the butcher was a brand we created at Vic's Meat to correspond with a Foxtel show and iPhone App of the same name. The creative brief was masculine, meaty and approachable. The photos from this shoot were used for recipe cards, website images, publicity shots etc. 

Photography by Jason Loucas.

Avoiding the cliches of barbecues and thongs for our summer/Australia Day window display, I created a window that told the story of the Australian bush, a place where Dorothea Mackellar's A Sunburnt Country meets May Gibbs's gum nut babies. 

The flora and fauna was all sourced out a Flemington Markets and changed every few days. 

Photography by Jason Loucas.

A butcher's window is made for halloween! Crepinette hung as cobwebs, graves of dishes long dead and a few bones for good measure. 

The real joy of this window was the obvious fascination of the children. It was lovely to watch.

Photography by Jason Loucas.

How do you make a television screen in a window look ok? This was a big challenge for me as I hate tv (my television at home is hidden behind a Joe Wilson painting).

To celebrate the launch of the Ask the Butcher tv show we wanted to run the sizzle reel. I created this scene using these gorgeous curtains from a puppet show. The theatre crowd included a melange of human and animal. 

Photography by Jason Loucas.

When creating the summer window display for the Opera House's gift store I was asked to promote three disparate events: Own Our House, Summer at the House and the Australian Ballet.

The Own Our House display was designed to encourage people to "buy" a tile of the Opera House. I represented this with a model of the House using faces for each tile. Above the Opera House I hung "seagulls" made from the promotional tickets they had created in-house to sell the tiles. 

On either side of the House I hung the smaller displays using some similar elements to give the entire window synergy. I created "curtains" to separate the space. For the Australian Ballet I used Australian fauna, for the Summer at the House (a small child playing in the sandpit) I used thongs in the colour scheme of the event. 

The heritage status of the Opera House did pose many challenges, but I was very happy with the result.

The Valentine's Day window was a collaboration with Canturi. Working with Manny Dixon we designed a table setting for two ghost diners. Over the course of 10 days they were treated to a degustation of food and jewels.

Photography by Jason Lucas.

FoodinFocus, a new food publication that was launched in July 2007, is a monthly newzine that focuses on local, approachable food.

I was responsible for all the recipe development, testing and styling for the publication.

I wrote the launch edition editorial, food news, chef’s profiles, cookbook reviews and tested and developed all the recipes.

As deputy editor I was employed to help determine the editorial direction of the publication during its first few months.