Flying Workshop

With Nathan Peter Wong, we devel­op tv dra­ma and ani­ma­tion for young peo­ple and fam­i­lies. Every show—quirky or profound—features diverse and relat­able char­ac­ters. Indus­try lead­ers have men­tored us and com­mis­sioned our work.

Best Bugs Forever

Our first ani­ma­tion fol­lows the escapades of a com­mu­ni­ty (or infes­ta­tion) of friend­ly ver­min. The show enjoys the back­ing of The Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny, which has added its char­ac­ter­is­tic vibran­cy and pol­ish. Fifty-two episodes (in six lan­guages) have been pro­duced by the Academy-Award®-nominated stu­dio, Je Suis Bien Con­tent. Fam­i­lies across the world have enjoyed the show on Dis­ney Chan­nel, ABC Aus­tralia and oth­er networks.

Character Parts

Fly­ing Work­shop has a pure, fam­i­ly focus. In parallel—and in contrast—we’re explor­ing arrest­ing adult dra­ma and fac­tu­al pro­gram­ming. Char­ac­ter Parts com­ple­ments Fly­ing Workshop’s recog­nised name while estab­lish­ing a pres­ence as ‘grown-up’ inde­pen­dent screenwriters.

Petergate Publishing

Our books will move young read­ers to grow in under­stand­ing, courage and resilience, to explore and improve their world, and to express their imag­i­na­tions through the arts.

Real Experiences

We work on paper, on screen and in the imag­i­na­tion. But we long for the tac­tile, ana­logue, bare­foot, hands-on world too: authen­tic lived experiences.

Real Creativity

Gen­er­ous men­tors helped make our ear­ly dreams real­is­tic. We aim to share that good for­tune through pub­li­ca­tions, edu­ca­tion and group events for peo­ple pur­su­ing a cre­ative liv­ing and life.

Real Childhood

Once, our plan for a low-key, irreg­u­lar par­ent-and-child mag­a­zine seemed suf­fi­cient. But now, a pos­i­tive, anti-pink, out­spo­ken, inclu­sive, un-plas­tic move­ment for fam­i­lies is imper­a­tive. Now we must build broad­er media and expe­ri­ences under­pinned by hope, resilience and respect.

Hearts and Culture

Our fledg­ling char­i­ty cam­paigns for cre­ative and per­form­ing arts spaces, resources and edu­ca­tion in region­al communities.

The Harris Institute, Preston

In 2015, we insti­gat­ed a £5 mil­lion bid to restore a Grade-II*-listed Vic­to­ri­an-era land­mark. With over a quar­ter-acre of floor space, we envis­aged a space buzzing with edu­ca­tion in the arts and tech­ni­cal crafts, com­mu­ni­ty events and arts gath­er­ings. Exhi­bi­tions, music, film and per­for­mance would be a night­ly focus. Sad­ly, the building’s poor con­di­tion halt­ed our work. Now, a broad­er com­mu­ni­ty coali­tion is dri­ving the project ahead, and we look for­ward to con­tribut­ing our expertise.

Design for Children

By link­ing graph­ic design with edu­ca­tion, we craft tempt­ing, usable and vibrant media for young peo­ple. Backed by research and strong ethics, our work avoids the hec­tic pink-and-orange explo­sive excess­es that dis­tract and exhaust our audi­ence. In their place? Respect, read­abil­i­ty and honesty.

Words with Ways

Bring­ing our copy­writ­ing and con­tent-cre­ation skills to the fore, Words with Ways shapes cus­tomer-cen­tric writ­ing and design with a dis­tinct iden­ti­ty and brand voice.
★ Launch­ing 2022

Stuart Gibson

director, publishing consultant, project developer

stuart@theopengroup.com

A var­ied edu­ca­tion means Stu­art knows a lit­tle about jour­nal­ism and the­atre, and rather more about education.

At the­atres in Syd­ney and Lon­don, Stu­art found an affin­i­ty for arts mar­ket­ing. His knack for vibrant writ­ing and design was wel­comed at Scholas­tic Aus­tralia, where he pro­mot­ed edu­ca­tion­al and children’s books. In 2002 Stu­art found­ed a pub­lish­ing con­sul­tan­cy, which has pro­vid­ed edi­to­r­i­al and design for 160 books with some 500,000 copies in print.

His work at The Open Peo­ple cen­tres on themes of sto­ry­telling, child­hood, edu­ca­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, design and innovation.

Please be reas­sured that Stuart’s com­put­er is not cur­rent­ly on fire: that’s his smoky Lap­sang Sou­chong tea.

Peter Hilton

arts and experience consultant, project developer

peter@theopengroup.com

When young, Peter quick­ly recog­nised the pow­er of storytelling.

After join­ing a pro­gres­sive youth the­atre, Peter honed his quick wit, impro­vi­sa­tion and writ­ing skills. His ear for dia­logue and accents count­ed, but an empa­thy for oth­ers did most to ground his por­tray­als. Lat­er train­ing in Com­mu­ni­ty and Edu­ca­tion­al The­atre saw Peter encour­age the trust and esteem of dis­en­fran­chised young peo­ple as they told their own stories.

Peter’s knowl­edge of the­atre and tele­vi­sion extends across the uk, us and Aus­tralia. He’s drawn to mus­cu­lar, char­ac­ter-dri­ven drama.

Along­side his own work, Peter’s career in the arts, her­itage and tourism sec­tors has includ­ed roles at The Syd­ney Opera House, Lon­don’s Bar­bi­can Cen­tre, York Muse­ums Trust and Madame Tussauds.

Peter is known for his humour, humane insight and good judgement.

The Open Group Pty Limited

po Box 400
Sur­ry Hills nsw 2010
aus­tralia

+61 (0)2 8000 1000

hello@theopengroup.com

In Syd­ney, it’s on

acn 108 809 794
abn 74 317 400 213

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Copy­right ©1998–2022, The Open Group Pty Lim­it­ed and The Open Peo­ple Limited.

The names and logos for Peter­gate®, Book Design Aus­tralia®, Hearts and Cul­ture™, Mod­est Store™, The Open Group™, The Open Peo­ple™, The Open Store™, ‘Open’ logo™, Real Child­hood™, Real Cre­ativ­i­ty™, Words with Ways™, Print is Read™, A Book Inside™, Mod­est Store™, Char­ac­ter Parts™ and Spice and Friends™ are trade­marks of The Open Group Pty Limited.

The name and logo for Fly­ing Work­shop™ are trade­marks of The Open Group Pty Lim­it­ed and Nathan Peter Wong as joint-ven­ture partners.

The name Best Bugs For­ev­er™ is a trade­mark of The Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in asso­ci­a­tion with Je Suis Bien Content.

‘Freight’ type­faces by Joshua Dar­d­en are licensed from Type­kit. The ‘Open’ logo was adapt­ed from ‘Zan­tiqa’ font by Sergiy Tkachenko, licensed from MyFonts.

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