The story behind Urban Media.
It started with Jack and Gabe, two Melbourne shooters who got tired of content that didn't earn attention, and built a studio that does. Founder-run, two cameras as standard, nothing leaves until it's right.
Jack
Co-Founder & Managing DirectorI run the business side, clients, operations, the boring-but-important stuff, and I built most of what holds it together myself: the client portal, this website, the infrastructure behind it. I came up through graphic design, so the design and web work is mine. On a shoot I'm on video and I fly the drone (CASA-accredited, before you ask).
Gabe and I both shoot, always, two cameras, two perspectives, every time. He's the better photographer; I'll give him that. He takes the edit and production; I take the clients and the chaos.
Outside
the work.
Outside it: George, my golden retriever, supervises. I'm F1-obsessed (homegrown only, Webber, Ricciardo, now Piastri), a long-suffering Chelsea fan from a few years living in London as a kid, and I still play soccer for Hampton East Brighton. I also coach, the SimRacing program at my old school, and the year 7 soccer side (6-2 first season, and yeah, I'm a better coach than I ever was a player).
To work with, I'm blunt. I'll tell you what'll actually work instead of just agreeing with you, and I'd rather lose the easy yes than hand you something that flops. But I pick up the phone, every time, and I genuinely want the feedback, good or bad, it just makes the next one better.
Gabe
Co-Founder & Creative DirectorI run the craft. Editing, colour grading, sound, motion, the look, end to end, the whole production is mine, and I do the planning and shot-lists before we ever turn up. On a shoot I'm on the camera, Jack's on the drone, and we swap when it suits. He'll tell you I'm the better photographer. He's right.
I got my first camera at ten and never put it down, shooting cars on Beach Road through lockdown, posting them, learning the edit. A supercar owner walked up one day and asked me to shoot his car; that was my first ever job, at thirteen. By fourteen I was running a kebab shop's socials. I chased the skill, not the money, and that's still how I work.
Outside
the work.
I used to shoot everything dark and moody. Now I build the look around the subject and the scene, filmic, cinematic, whatever actually suits what we're trying to say. Outside work it's the same thing that started it: cars, car meets, a camera, mates. I still shoot for fun on weekends, it's never gone stale.
On a job I'm the calm one. I was more intense when we started; experience sorted that out. Deadlines bearing down, something going sideways on set, that's exactly when you want me level.
How we built
the logo.
We design like we shoot, the same care goes into the mark as the work. So we built it ourselves, in the open: every dead-end, every refinement, and where we finally landed.
Stage
01 · Sketchbook
Layers
Where we started.
We made the first marks ourselves: a boxed wordmark, flat type, a 3D extrude. Honest, but generic. Good logos come from killing your first ten ideas, so we pinned them all up and started cutting.
Two letters.
One continuous form.
It fuses U and M into a single geometric shape. Not two letters placed together, but one form that contains both. Built entirely from vertical strokes connected by diagonals. No curves, no serifs, no decoration.
The dual reading: left to right it encodes U + M. As a silhouette it reads as a city skyline: stepped columns rising, bridged by the angled faces of urban towers.
On dark, the primary mark.
On light, the mark reversed.
This mark is Victor's. He runs all our branding, we've worked with him for two years now and the relationship just works: a permanent partner, not a hire-per-job. Logos, type, the identity system that holds across a whole season.