We’ve just added 29 new CUBISMs to our flickr. The latest batch includes references to giant diamonds, Brendan Fevola, comedic pugs and creased pants.

Here are our two favourites. See the rest here.

When some people take a sabbatical, they leave one type of work in search of an alternative lifestyle. Others leave study to go travelling and get real world experience. Then there are those who leave responsibility behind to go bowling.

And get good at it.

Really, really, really good at it.

You should never go bowling with those people.

Sadly when ten of us went out for a pizza and a social bowl this week we didn’t realise we had amongst us a bowling ninja. On Troy’s team, the sledging and baracking started early, while on Dave’s team, Nik was just offering team mates the occasional helping hint. Then he stepped up to bowl.

BAM! You know what that is? That’s the sound of Nik getting strike after strike (while Dave and Kate sent bowling ball after bowling ball down into the gutters). To be fair, in the second game Brendan showed his sporting prowess to record a very respectable 186, Steph, Sina, Big Dave and Elise all scored over 100, but at the end of it all, Nik’s 221 was by far the stand out score of the night.

Next time we do this, I dibs being on Nik’s team.

If he’ll have me.

Last week, we waved goodbye to the man who thinks eating fruit after dark is weird.

Yes, Mickey T, our Studio Manager (and regular contributor to our Cubism wall), has headed off to London.

His farewell party appropriately involved an afternoon of Foosball (Mickey’s team won, Brendan’s team lost) and far too many drinks at the local pub. And though he’ll be sorely missed, Mickey’s promised to keep those Cubisms coming over via email – which will no doubt keep us all amused.

Before Mickey left he formally handed over his keyboard to our new Finished Artist – David Santolin aka DJ d-vise. That’s right, now we have a resident funk/disco/hip hop DJ in the office!

We’re bugging him to bring in his decks and mix it up this Friday during 80’s hour.

He’s not convinced…yet.

But don’t worry, we’ll keep chipping away.

And if we’re unsuccessful, we’ll just have to organize an agency excursion to his Saturday night gig at First Floor on Brunswick Street.

So welcome to CUBED, David. We’re thrilled to have you on board – and pleased to know that keyboard is in safe hands.

On Saturday, February 27, CUBED Business Director Chantelle Warren walked down the aisle and became a Lane (badda bing!).

Our Chants married handsome Maori songster Adam Lane on Torquay beach in a fun ceremony where Adam promised to buy her a coffee before every road trip and Chantelle promised to never say he had too many guitars.

After a long and lively reception, the bride and groom made it home. At 4am.

Congratulations from all of us to Mr and Mrs Lane.

Recently we welcomed Nik Shetty to the CUBED fold.

Nik joins us as Account Manager after a 5-year stint at Samuelson Talbot where he worked on The Age, Brown Brothers and Swinburne University. But he’s not just an account manager. Oh no, he’s a man of many talents.

He studied IT, majoring in eCommerce and Management Information Systems, so he’s got plenty of digital smarts.

And he’s also an accomplished cook. In fact, last Friday he brought in several bunches of home-grown sage and tempted us all with some droolworthy menu suggestions.

Nik says that it was CUBED’s ethos of giving something back that attracted him here, as he shares the same philosophy.

Just quietly, we’re hoping that means we’ll be seeing more sage in the kitchen – or maybe some of his white wine duck breast risotto.

How ’bout it, Nik?

Our new favourite CUBISM. Thanks Chants.

It’s always exciting to get our grubby little mitts on the printed samples of our work.

And after 99 days since the University of Ballarat Program Guide first hit CUBED, the project’s designer, Ellie, and account manager, Shaina, were stoked to finally be holding the real deal. Once bribed with Laura’s pavlova, they were even happy to pose (quite unnaturally) for a blog pic. Thanks gals.

This piece is a further extension of the bigger-than-Ben-Hur Learn to Succeed campaign, which – so far – has helped increase the University’s number of first preferences by 13%.

Today we welcomed Sina Karimi to CUBED.

Sina is our new Digital Designer/Developer who will be building all manner of online communications for our clients – and ourselves.

He’s flash at flash, he can speak fluent html and he lists 3D modelling and motion graphics as his hobbies.This afternoon, he took a Nissan for a virtual test drive (above) and gave us a guided tour of some of the most jaw-dropping pages on the net (we’ll be tweeting about some of these later).

So thanks Sina! And welcome aboard. We can’t wait to blog about your digital projects!

We’ve just updated the CUBISMs folder on our flickr with some new material.

Our favourite from the latest batch was this gem from Stefanie, our new writer, who’s apparently discovered the benefit of getting older:

We’re rolling out the welcome mat and breaking out the cupcakes to welcome Stefanie Digianvincenzo aboard as CUBED’s full-time copywriter.

Stef is an award-winning writer who’s been honoured with several ADMAs, including a craft award for copywriting within her first two years in the industry. (It’s a bit like scoring a best actress Oscar on your first acting gig.)

Our Creative Directors, Dave and Kate, worked with Stef previously and are thrilled to team up with her again at CUBED.

So welcome aboard, Stef! It’s great to have you here.