Unlikely Avian Taxonomies¸ which opens at DAB LAB Research Gallery on 29 August 2012, demonstrates how designers play with the relationships between content, form and materiality to communicate information in visually engaging ways.

A result of extensive mining of International Ornithological Committee World Bird List, the exhibition shows series of unlikely taxonomies, presented as works on paper and experimental books by UTS design lecturers Zoë Sadokierski and Kate Sweetapple.

Through their extensive research Zoë and Kate identified 87 distinct and sometimes surprising colours that appear in bird names, from the Olivaceous Flycatcher, to the Citrine Warbler.

Other groupings include: antisocial birds (ordered from the reclusive Solitary Snipe to the malicious Satanic Nightjar); birds with smutty names (eg the Agile Tit-Tyrant and the Erect-crested Penguin); and the obviously patterned, from the Greater Striped Swallow to the more subtly striped Zebra Finch.

Both Zoë and Kate share a love of words, images and particularly the spaces in which they overlap.

Unlikely Avian Taxonomies is an ongoing collaboration through which they re-categorised birds based on patterns in their names, then visualised these re-categorisations (or taxonomies) as posters, sculptures and books.

Zoë Sadokeirski and Kate Sweetapple have collaborated for two years – both have their own design research practices: Kate focuses on information visualisation and Zoë on publication design.

To view their work go to: www.cargocollective.com/pagescreen

Unlikely Avian Taxonomies by Zoë Sadokierski and Kate Sweetapple opens on 29 August and runs until 28 September 2012 at the DAB Lab Research Gallery, Level 4 courtyard, UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, 702-730 Harris Street, Ultimo.