Sometimes you have to go left if you want to turn right.

One of the iconic aspects features of Melbourne, especially the central city, is a strange traffic manoeuvre called the Hook Turn. In order not to delay trams when you’re making a turn at an intersection, you do something weird. To turn right, you must pull over to the left, wait for all traffic to pass, then make your right hand turn.

It’s strange, but once you get the hang of it, you can probably consider yourself a local.

So when we decided we wanted to create a home for quality podcasts and interesting new publishing ideas (all developed in Melbourne), naturally, we named it Hookturn.

We started with our existing design show The Nudge. The Nudge, hosted by Josh Kinal, Jerome Lebel Jones and me, is a podcast about being better designers, and I guess, people. It started as a branch out from our Nudge Live events, but now has a life of its own. The recent guests have included Ethan Marcotte, Jeffrey Zeldman, Debbie Millman, and Chris ‘Clarko’ Clarke.

Josh Kinal also features on another of our podcasts, Devil’s Avocado. This great program takes the big issues of the day and asks experts to help uncover the details you’re not getting in the breathless reports of the modern news cycle. The first three episodes have discussed Asylum Seekers, Drugs, and Melbourne’s culture of 'Bad Business’. Co-hosting this great show is the wonderful Glenn Peters.

My personal favourite new member of the Hookturn family is Last Stop to Nowhere. In it, Michael Sloan and Kyle Sherer bring to life the complications of Australia’s past; it’s Australian History, but not like you learned it at school. So far they’ve covered fascism in 1930s Sydney, and now they’re tackling the 1629 shipwreck of The Batavia. 

We’ve got other things in the pipeline too, including a podcast companion to Twenty Seventy –– Clem Bastow’s year-long project to live life like it’s the 1970s. Keep an eye on the Hookturn website and see what comes along throughout the year.

Ding Ding!