Bounce Books is born when brothers-in-law Neil Montagnana-Wallace and Leonard Montagnana team up to start a publishing company to tell the stories of companies celebrating milestones.

Their early projects include The A List International, spotlighting Australia’s top dancers; The Marconi Social Club: 50 Years, a celebration of the iconic Italian club; From Horse Shoes to High Heels, the story of Ringwood Shopping Centre; and Whatever It Is, This Is What It Is, the memoirs of philanthropist and businessman Les Erdi OAM.

Neil teams up with Socceroo Mark Schwarzer to write and release the first of five books in the Vootball Kids series – Megs and the Vootball Kids. Since Val is still a primary school teacher at this point, her class becomes the focus group for the manuscript, which she reads aloud to them a chapter at a time as it is being written. One of her kids, Cam, is the inspiration for the cover artwork, and all are invited to the book launch.

Soccer becomes a recurrent theme. In 2010, Neil and photographer Enzo embark on the project of a lifetime – a behind-the-scenes book of Australia’s Socceroos South African World Cup campaign. Each Socceroo receives four copies of this limited-edition book that captures the highs, lows and laughs in the locker room. We put the band back together to capture the team’s Asian Cup journey in Qatar two years later, and then again when the team heads to Brazil in 2014.

Bounce begins writing and designing a book for Thiess’s 75^th anniversary. Based on more than forty interviews – with everyone from the truck drivers to the chair of the board –  this book is a 360-degree view of what it means to be a ‘blue blood’. We later produce three more books for them.

Val joins the tiny team and gets to work trying to win new work. Her first project is a book for Turnleys, a 100-year-old family business making and selling hairdressing supplies. With a mad-professor laboratory dating back to the 1940s in their basement, they are living proof that there’s no such thing as a boring story.

Neil and Val decide to put all their eggs in one basket. They buy Leonard out of his share of the business and move into new rented premises.

Bounce takes on the mother of all editing jobs to transform an 80,000-word, 20-year-old manuscript into a modern coffee-table book (with half as many  words) to celebrate 125 years of MLC Financial.

Melbourne icon Luna Park celebrates its centenary and Bounce Books has the privilege of telling its story. To ensure that there are enough photographs of happy people having fun at Luna Park, family and friends of Bounce Books take over the park on a quiet afternoon and Bounce photographer Jo Sheather is kept busy trying to get everyone on camera before the kids come down from their fairy-floss highs.

Later that year, author Neil and Bounce project manager Miranda Lee attend the media launch of Melbourne Zoo’s sesquicentenary book and find out first-hand that wombats prefer to eat books than read them.

A book for Note Printing Australia means we get to learn all about how our money is made. Author Neil and photographer Jo are subject to all sorts of security checks on their way in and out, and we discover that $5 notes that don’t make the cut get recycled into plastic buckets!

Rairu Rebolledo joins the team as our inhouse designer. Her first project is a book for Toorak College celebrating its 140^th anniversary in 2014. Ten years later, she will design the college’s second book when it turns 150.

Bounce crosses another Australian icon off its list when Coles requests a coffee table book for its centenary. The book is gifted to every single person who works at Coles in 2014, plus many others who helped shape the supermarket’s story. Fun fact: the Coles family holds the record for the most siblings knighted in a family (five, and one dame). The book is launched at the National Portrait Gallery, supervised by portraits of the Coles siblings.

In 2015, an enormous box of biscuits lands on Bounce’s doorstep as we begin work on a book for Arnott’s 150^th anniversary. This project involves photographing each of Arnott’s many factories and asking everyone we meet: what’s your favourite Arnott’s biscuit? Many discussions ensue about the correct way to do a Tim Tam slam.

The same year, Neil begins unpacking the story of Akubra. When the Keir family discovers how much they love telling their story – and that a book alone isn’t going to cut it – they ask Bounce to design an installation that will be showcased at the book launch, to be held at the Sydney Easter Show in 2016.

For many years, the Otto Wurth smallgoods factory in Preston has lain derelict. When the area is redeveloped and the building goes up for sale, Neil and Val snap up their very own piece of history.

The Akubra project was the first seed for Bounce’s transition. After many, many conversations about small topics like: Who are we? Why are we here? And what do we want to be when we grow up? Bounce Books launches Hyphen. Now, installations and films become part of our portfolio of projects, and the team comes together to design the Hyphen logo to give an identity to this new brand.

A core Hyphen value is ‘say yes and figure it out’. This results in our first ever film, a feature-length documentary for CSL’s centenary. The film comes off the back of a book, and we partner with filmmaker Simon Dikkenberg to pull it off.

Hyphen begins the first of several projects for International Art Services. The result is a vibrant and beautiful book filled with stories from the art world. A year later, its author, Jess Atkinson, who is now living in the US, follows up with a book for IAS’s sister company in Portland – Artech Fine Art Services.

After almost fifteen years at the helm, Neil steps back from a leadership role at Hyphen and Val steps up. Neil continues to research and write books and films.

In a year of chaos, and in the most locked-down city in the world, Hyphen manages to keep its projects flowing and its head above water. Films and installations are impossible, but luckily, books can be written, edited and designed from home. That year, against all the odds, we publish books for Bakers Delight, Southern Steel, and Elders, among several others. And we hardly cry at all.

We create the Elderton Wines anniversary book, celebrating their Barossa heritage and family story. This year also sees us produce major milestone books for James Cook University, Camberwell Girls Grammar School, and the Australian Stock Horse Society.

In 2022, we partner with Arden Anglican School to craft a heartfelt history book celebrating the school’s community and journey. The project is brought to life with beautiful custom illustrations by Simon O’Carrigan, whose work adds warmth and character to every chapter.

A film capturing a centenary of making hay – whether the sun is shining or not – for South Australian exporters JT Johnson and Sons is quickly followed by a book: A Century in the Making.

Hyphen collaborates with the team at Heidelberg Materials Australia to produce a rebranding film and a little something for their website. Project manager Claudia Piggott hits the road with filmmaker Mark Harrison to learn all about concrete and aggregates, and the people behind the business that make it all happen.

Having grown Bounce Books and then Hyphen for nearly two decades, Neil exits the day-to-day of the business to pursue other adventures, but remains on the board.

The year 2025 is our biggest yet. We send a long list of books to print — for ACE, BHP, Boral, Eastcoast Beverages, Hannaford, I-Med, Johnson’s, LGMA Queensland, Master Builders Victoria, MGA Insurance Group, Penrite, People First, St Andrews College and Thiess — and produce films for BHP, People First Bank and Master Builders Victoria. We also create two large-scale installations for St Andrews School and Kennards Hire. It’s a milestone year of stories, design and celebration.

In 2026, Hyphen turns twenty – two decades of stories, ideas and creativity brought to life. We’ve grown into a team of writers, designers, editors, filmmakers, photographers, project managers and creators who never stop looking for the spark in every story.

Here’s to the next chapter – and all the stories still to come.