I’ve done numerous graphic design projects over the years, including websites and merchandise. I’m sharing a selection here mainly for nostalgia (maybe not just my own?) but also for a vignette of the evolving early web and some assets others might want to use (if this isn’t too quaint a notion today).
Snowboarding
I was heavily involved in the Melbourne University Snowboard Team (MUST) in the late 90s and early 2000s, helping with digital, organising trips, and serving as president for 2 years. I inherited a great platform which I could use to explore digital design in the early days of the web.
1998-2001 MUST website
MUST was an early adopter of digital media. I had fun rendering POV-Ray images and skeumorphic navigation buttons for the 1998 website.
But it wasn’t all fun and frames, I also brought img slicing to the table to create clickable masterpieces like this online newsletter cover (and yes I was infatuated with the lens flare effect in Corel PhotoPaint, which I used for editing photos).
Apologies to would-be collectors, there was only ever one more issue published the following year. And in 1999 the website inherited this orange, deep blue and white colour scheme, based on a single navigation bar image I’ve tracked down and vague memories, but I can’t locate any other source or screenshots.
By 2000, I’d definitely settled for this flatter (if a little busy) design style in a remixed colour scheme, making more use of digitised photos, now ubiquitous, and possibly foreshadowing a typical responsive design desktop layout? (except for the persistent frames) This was all hand-crafted HTML.
And by 2001 it was a little cleaner again with more muted colours. You may have noticed that to this day I like orange and contrasting colours in my palette.
2000 MUST New Zealand Trip Hoodie
Nearly 50 members in 8 motorhomes touring the South Island; the annual NZ trip was the highlight of the MUST calendar. I co-organised the 2000 trip and designed the commemorative hoodie, with a clean, digital motif for the new millennium.
They looked pretty good en masse!
Ultimate Frisbee
I discovered Ultimate frisbee when working in Perth in the early 2000s (a long way from any snow!) As I got more involved in the community, I figured I could help out once more with digital and design.
2006 VFDA website
The Victorian Flying Disc Association (VFDA) overhauled their website in 2006 and I had fun designing a whimsical collection of characters to showcase the sport of Ultimate and the site features. VFDA is now Ultimate Victoria.
By this point, I was fairly proficient with Inkscape for graphic design, and appreciated the portability of its native SVG format. This allows me to release the banner artwork and characters for anyone to use and remix under CC BY-SA 4.0.
2007 Melbourne Hat artwork
In 2007 I designed the artwork for the 19th annual Melbourne Hat tournament, which wore the theme “Top Hat”. I referenced the Little Penguin colony in St Kilda, the colony being close to the playing fields and penguins being known for their formal attire.
One item I’m particularly fond of is the custom design of the tournament disc (frisbee), which I wanted to fit the circular frame, and where margins and shape areas needed careful attention due to the manufacturing process.
It looks pretty good in real life too! (Though it will never be thrown…)
Computer Nerding
I’ve also designed a few logos for various professional initiatives, with a touch of wry humour, possibly outside the typical marketing process, but always with the intent of making software and data nerds feel welcome.
2008-2009 VPAC Summer Internships
What better way to protect yourself against the ravages of the Australian summer sun than a high-performance computing internship in a dark basement? The Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing agreed, and we had some superstars in this summer program.
For the kids of today, SPF 15+ (ie ~= 10^1.176) was the best sunscreen available in my youth.
2021 Thoughtworks Data Cousins
These stickers were designed for the Thoughtworks Australia Data & AI Service Line. The design was based on a colleague saying they always felt supported in the team, like in a group of cousins who could help with their schoolwork, hence “data cousins”. Cosine similarity wasn’t so front-of-mind for techies in those pre-GPT days, but I thought it made for a nice pun, as vector projection reinforces what we have in common, while the design includes diversity in the space in between, using the full corporate colour palette.
