MADE Communication Design Issue Two

Issue 2 Communication Design

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Beyond the Baseline Interview with Annabelle Burns and Xanthe Griffiths

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Cicada Interview with Rosa Nevison

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Te Ara Honohono Interview with Ella Todd, Mason Corbett, Kiritea Cook-Green, Georgia Cullen and James Reed

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Entertainment

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A4 Poster

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First Year Interview with Evaline Noad, Caleb Brown and Justina King

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Games Stream Greg Tweed, Jd Rademeyer, Blair Roberson and Samantha Lindsey

MADE is a small run print publication focused on everything about design. At Otago Polytechnic we share our stories of how we creatively discover, engage, learn and lead with our communities and with each other.

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Beyond The Baseline

Interview with Annabelle and Xanthe about the Beyond the Baseline exhibition

What was the brief for this project?

Beyond the Baseline #2 is a six-week typography course taught to second-year Communication Design students at Otago Polytechnic. The final outcomes of these works were reproduced in vinyl and exhibited in the O Block gallery on campus. You will research graphic design layout and typography, you will then use digital programs and the techniques to draw and publish an original group of typographic characters.

This final typographic work must then be prepared for laser cutting into vinyl for exhibition and published with a short piece of writing in an exhibition catalog.

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What attracted you to taking Communication Design?

something out of nothing to help improve the environment a little more. I like designs that have deeper meaning and make you question things.

Xanthe: I am big on sustainability and it is a big part of Otago Polytechnic and their teaching practices. Integrity and honest design are important to me.

Annabelle: I found throughout high school that creative subjects were the only thing I wanted to do. I never really knew coming out of high school what I wanted to do but I had a two-year gap year and I was doing creative things on the side and I knew it was something I wanted to see further into. I took the leap and moved to Dunedin to study Design Communication and I am loving it.

Xanthe: I wasn’t interested in anything else but Design subjects at high school and when I came to the open day, I liked what was shown, and talked about, in this course and I knew it was something I would enjoy studying.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

We both made a typeface, hand-drawn and digitalised. We both worked with our lecturer Matt Galloway to help organise the exhibition at Otago Polytechnic to showcase our typefaces as well as helping make an exhibition catalogue. We sent the Ai files of our typefaces to Astrid who printed them on the vinyl cutter, we transferred the vinyl cut out of our typeface onto a large whiteboard which was then hung from the ceiling at the exhibition.

Were your expectations met?

Annabelle: Yes definitely. Last year we had to do a taster of all the course communication design offers. Doing all these classes has really helped me to appreciate and understand all different aspects of design a bit more and I got to find out what area of design I am interested in.

Xanthe: Getting to choose your classes for this year was super helpful and it helps lead you into an area of design that you find interesting. I personally think it is good to have a large number of design skills and knowledge so you can use it in the future.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

Annabelle: I have always loved drawing misshaped facial characters and developing them into something more sinister, taking a play on their emotions and facial expressions. ‘Ahh!! Real Monsters’ was a TV show from the 90s that was based around three monsters living underground who would come to the surface to scare the townspeople. Designed by Klasky Csupo, Inc. who were the producers of The Simpsons, Rugrats, and The Wild Thornberry’s, which are just a few of the shows I grew up watching. As I was playing with my initial font design one of my characters looked like Krumm, one of the main characters from ‘Ahh!! Real

What are your values as a designer?

Annabelle: In our fundamentals class we have been trying to find our values using the four pillars of design. My main value is up recycling. Up recycling is trying to make

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Monsters’. Looking at the title for this TV show I knew I was able to make it into something much more intricate and detailed, while still having elements from the original title and their characters.

Each letter in my design has its own style and personality inspired by these strange underground monsters.

Xanthe: The phrase, ‘the government is run by lizards’ is inspired by a podcast called Armchaired and Dangerous by David Farrier, where he talks about conspiracy theories. In one of his episodes, he talks about the theory that lizard people came down to earth billions of years ago to rule the world through the government. I used this as inspiration as I thought it could be a fun take on something that can feel confusing or concerning, as the theory created by David Icke has some dark ideas that come through. My outcome incorporates conspiracy theories by making them hard

to read and chaotic to portray. I also took inspiration from Jacob Wise’s type of work.

Wise is a type and graphic freelancer in the UK. His work can be hard to read and it can take longer to decipher each word. This makes the audience think about his work in more depth, trying to figure out what it says. Because of the lizard theme, I created a typeface to show aspects of the reptiles by making them curly and loose but also have sharp endings reminding me of their tongues and how lizards are very skittish.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

Annabelle: This course helped me figure out my illustration style which I think is pretty cool, as well as learning how to use and apply vinyl cutouts.

Xanthe: The skill I learned the most was my own time management because it was a very independent class.

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Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

and I would need it to be looked over by an appropriate person to make sure the design is appropriate within their culture.

Xanthe: I think it is important to acknowledge and how to respectfully go about it throughout the design process.

I would love to learn more about New Zealand Māori culture and how to incorporate it into my work.

Annabelle: I found getting the placement of the letter right on the page was hard.

Xanthe: I found it quite smooth sailing because it was my first idea, so it was a fast process but getting all the letters to work together on the page was challenging.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Annabelle: 100%, it has definitely toned things down for me and minimalized things a bit more.

Xanthe: For sure, I feel like looking back from the stuff I did last year there has been a lot of improvement.

Annabelle: Feedback is your best friend and it is going to take some time to figure out what you want to do as a designer but feedback will help you make better designs. Play around with things outside of class and bring your personal art style into your projects. Stand by your design and push for change.

Xanthe: Don’t be shy. I was super shy at the start of the year to show my work in group class critiques but the more work you share and ask for feedback on, the more it helps you with your confidence.

There is no right or wrong in design, it is all opinions so you just need to be confident in what you are making.

Is there anything you would change about your final outcome?

Annabelle: I would have liked to have changed some of the placements of the letters and added in a little more detail.

Xanthe: I feel like this is the type of typeface I can keep working on over a period of time to improve little things about it, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

What are your thoughts on bicultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

Annabelle: With that aspect of design I want to push it but I feel like I need to be careful about how I portray a certain culture

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“Feedback will help you make better design outcomes” -Annabelle Burns

Cicada Interview with Rosa Nevison about a multi-media meditation zine practice for active listening and being with nature.

What was the brief for this project?

“Why do a dry b-com when you could do a bachelors of design” -Rosa Nevison

Related to the Te Ara Honohono project, this project is an opportunity for a team of students to work with a parallel brief and share their work (through online critique) with design students at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada. You will choose a “more-thanhuman being”, (flora or fauna, rock or stream) on or near the Forth Street campus and you will become a design champion for this “being”. You will research the health and needs of that “being” and map the range of human activities that impede or support the flourishing of their species, presenting your research publicly through a design outcome. Design projects on behalf of the chosen being may encompass social innovations for sustainability; Design for Behaviour Change; Site Interventions; Exhibition Design; Design Activism; or others as suggested by the student team.

What attracted you to taking Communication Design?

I have always been interested in creative arty things.

I did photography, media, and design in school and they were always my favorite subjects. Once I left school, I went to Otago University and did a BA in film and media which was really interesting but I really

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What inspired you to create this style for your project?

wanted to do something more practical and hands-on. I discovered this course through researching online and thought it sounded a lot like me. I also had a couple of friends doing Communication Design at AUT and Massey so I was able to get a sense of the degree through their experiences. I liked the flexibility of the course; the first year is really broad and open. You get to try lots of different classes and skills, and that really appealed to me.

I chose the cicada because I realised it was the first thing I always noticed when I was outside. Tuning in to the cicada sounds helped me become more present. In order to showcase my “Being”, I wanted to explore the connection between nature and the meditative state, allowing the cicada to guide us as it had guided me.

My idea was to create a meditation guide booklet with a QR code inside that links to a corresponding soundscape made from the cicada sounds and other nature sounds from around the local area. I wanted the style to be simple and minimal because the content is the main focus and I didn’t want people to get distracted by aesthetic. To be distracted by flashy visuals would take away from the meditative experience, and the goal of the guide.

Were your expectations met?

Yeah, for sure! I think I have learned a lot.

I really like the class size and the structure of the course. I like the freedom we get to do what we want (to a degree) and to tailor our projects to our interests which is cool.

What are your values as a designer?

What skills did you learn doing this project?

As an emerging designer, I know that my practice will continue to develop, but there are important values that guide my design.

Environmental and social sustainability, personal responsibility for the design I create (design for good), and to inform, educate, uplift, and inspire.

We were in close contact with a class at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada the whole way through that project and they were doing basically the same project as us. It was interesting getting feedback from them as they were coming from such a different perspective, and really lovely learning about their projects too.

It was super inspiring and pushed all our projects and exploration into a much more personal and spiritual direction which I don’t think we would have got to that deeper level without their help.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

The Being I chose to champion was the Cicada, and the outcome was an A6 meditation guide booklet that would be freely distributed in public. The idea was to have a corresponding soundscape, made from cicada sounds, recorded around the local area, but because of the length of the project, I didn’t have time to make that unfortunately. It is something I would like to finish and distribute properly.

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Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

as a white person some stuff might not be relevant for me to work on or design for because I am not coming at it from Time was the biggest challenge as it was only the appropriate cultural perspective. Or a six-week project. We did a lot of learning, at least making sure that people who do reading, and spending time in nature before are getting consultations, knowledge, and we even started thinking about what our approval from the right people. design outcomes would be. This was very valuable and the project wouldn’t have been Do you think about sustainability the same without that time, as it provided when it comes to your design us with an opportunity for deep exploration practice? and thinking. I finished the printed outcome but found that there was not enough time to Yes, and there are different kinds of complete the soundscape which would have sustainability to consider. Always thinking tied everything together. about how the outcome of your project

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

100%! Because we are doing it every single day, you learn skills and practice them, the things you are constantly doing are the stuff that sticks. As I’ve gotten used to the design process, I have become a lot more confident which makes me feel like I have improved.

Being more confident to share ideas, I actually love critiques now. I value them because it is so good to get feedback.

will affect the environment, whether that is to do with the content, materials, or the process. Cultural and social sustainability is also important to consider, which may be in the form of creating platforms that benefit other people and the sustainability of their practices, for example. Sometimes practicing total sustainability within communication design is difficult, this is where I think sustainability ties into your own values and integrity, and we must deem what is, and what is not, worth pursuing while doing the best we can to be as sustainable as possible.

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand What would you say to someone designer? thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

I think it’s really important to acknowledge and respect the multi-cultural society that we live in. As a Pākehā person, it is important to continually be thinking about the whakapapa of the place and spaces we operate in and making sure that people who have been misrepresented or not represented at all when they should have been do get that representation. Being aware that sometimes

Do it! It’s sick. This is a great course where I’ve learned a lot and made good friends. It is a great environment to learn in because you get so much one-on-one time and I think this is very valuable for learning and developing a practice.

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Te Ara Honohono Interview with Kiritea Cook-Green, Ella Todd, Mason Corbett about the Te Ara Honohono story telling AR experience for the touchstone in The Otago Polytechnic Hub.

What was the brief for this project?

At Otago Polytechnic, The Hub is a site of linked pathways. Some of these stories have been referenced in the design of the Hub, through lighting, carpets, and furnishings, through the placement of objects, and the flow of spaces. But few people know how to see or read these stories or are aware of the multiple pathways that cross this site. Te Ara Honohono is the name given to the Otago Polytechnic campus and its stories, by local runaka. This project seeks to engage in learning about these stories and use design to develop digital objects and experiences that will help to share these stories with visitors to The Hub through the design and production of Augmented Reality experiences.

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What attracted you to taking Communication Design?

Mason: One thing I knew about this course is that you get to do a lot of different things in the first year. It was kind of perfect for me and I was able to figure out what I wanted to do throughout the three years.

Ella: For me, I did design in school, and it was pretty much the only subject I enjoyed.

I did a design course after I finished school up in Wellington, but it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and then I found this course. I knew it was going to be more hands-on and exploring different design processes so that’s why I choose to study this course.

Kiritea: I decided to do this course because my sister told me to. I had started teaching myself how to use the Adobe cloud apps during high school and I never did design, but I enjoyed painting and drawing and other things on Adobe. My sister suggested this course and I thought I’d give it a go and I really liked it.

Were your expectations met?

Mason: For me, I don’t even really like graphic design anymore, it’s not something I am extremely interested in doing. That’s why this course is good because I don’t need to do that so much anymore because I am mostly doing film. Film is my passion now and I know that is what I will be doing next year once I graduate.

Ella: I didn’t really know what to expect when going into this course. I knew what graphic design was but I wasn’t sure what you could do with it but there are so many things that are covered by this course and my expectations have definitely been met.

Kiritea: I didn’t know what to expect but I

have enjoyed all of it and it has taught me a lot and has shown me what is out there in a whole other industry.

What are your values as a designer?

Mason: My design values are working as a team, exploring new things, and trying different things as well as putting myself and my designs out there.

Ella: My design values are honest design, and designing because I enjoy it.

Obviously, you have to design a certain way for the client, but I feel like incorporating your design style into the client’s work is important. Teamwork is a big value of mine, getting other people’s opinions on my designs is valuable for my design practice. I also want to incorporate more sustainability and I hope to continue with that into the future.

Kiritea: My design values are teamwork and integrity because as you design you need to stay true to yourself and seeing things as transparent and being honest as you go because I think it helps you as a designer, the design project, and process.

Bi-culturalism is very important to me, as it comes into play with sustainability, and I think that’s important in design.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

Group: Walkthrough AR experience about the touchstone and what all the different layers represent as well as telling the story of where they come from and what they mean as well as teaching people the history through AR and audio. We created an animation, audio, tacking images, and QR codes as well as feet markers of where to stand.

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Complete the Crossword!!

Design Communication Design Communication 1 2

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Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net

Across

Down

2. What is a popular photo editing program 4. What is the other primary colour besides red and blue?

6. What does the C in CMYK stand for?

7. What is a common game making program for windows?

9. What aren the screen format colours?

11. What is another word for a font?

12. What is another name for a plan/drawing?

1. A place in Dunedin where Communication design students study 3. What does the B in RGB stand for?

5. What do you change on the camera to let more light into the lens?

8. What colours do you print in?

10. What is the colour called when its mixed with both black and white?

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Can you make a picture out of these shapes?

Can you be the Master of Sudoku?

Can you spot ten differences?

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Design is thinking made visual

Design creates culture.

Culture shapes values.

Values determine the future.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

We were asked by our client to visually represent the Māori history of the touchstone and what it represents. We were given audio from our client which told the story of the touchstone and then we created visual outcomes to showcase this story.

Ella: The software, in general, was not the best and it wasn’t working properly.

Mason: We had a lot of trouble getting the audio to work with the AR program.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

Mason: Yep. I think the best skill I have learnt would be learning how to work with real clients. That was something new to most of us and doing it a few times now throughout the course it is much easier to work with clients on my own.

Ella: I think looking back at the time I didn’t think I was learning anything, or creating anything cool, that I liked but looking back I can see that I did. I think I have really improved on communicating my ideas through presentations because to me I feel like my first presentation in the first year was really bad.

Kiritea: Definitely. I think the skill I have improved on the most is the research element. I’ve been exploring the reasons behind things and thinking a whole concept through rather than in first year when I was just thinking about how something looked and then creating and doing research after. My design and research flow better and give a purpose behind my work.

Ella: I learned how to use AR software as I had never had to use this software before and the only experience, I had ever had with AR was the game Pokémon Go. I practiced animation skills by making the animation for the audio in photoshop.

Mason: I learned how to edit audio a little better and making sure it fit with the animation. With AR software we didn’t know how to use it, it was really hard to use. We were learning how to use the software as we went as well as testing and trialling while also doing a little research into animation and AR software.

Kiritea: We had touched on the basic information of the touchstone and a little about what the meaning of it is but it was good to work as a team and find out more of how we could visually showcase the story which was told through the audio we were given.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

What advice would you give to someone working with a client?

Mason: Ask lots of questions.

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What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Ella: Don’t be afraid to dig deep and ask personal questions about the project because that’s how you find out the best information.

Kiritea: Don’t be afraid to put yourself into the project, like what you like as a designer, because they might end up liking it instead of what they envisioned for that project.

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

Kiritea: I think it’s really important because in New Zealand there are a lot of political things happening and you’ve got to think about Māori people and who was here first and how you can help with that as well as how to represent it in a way that is respectful and going through the process of talking to the right people and getting approval for design outcomes.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Ella: Having as little print waste as possible as well as using recycled packaging and using our advantage with the internet by using things digitally rather than printing.

Kiritea: I think that this helps to play into thoughtful design and how you can wait until you’re really happy with how a design looks on your computer and then printing it. Don’t print out every little change you make, think about how we can as designers can reduce waste.

Mason: Otago Polytechnic has more sustainable paper options and recycles old paper. This is a great start to help this problem but something more needs to be done about it.

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Ella: Do it! I feel like the course is getting better as we are leaving; they are always developing it in a new way to make it better for the students. It’s easy to switch to other design departments within the Otago Polytechnic if you want to change, there are heaps of opportunities.

Mason: It’s good if you don’t know what you’re doing and if you like creative stuff.

You could go and do a photography course or do this course and learn photography and heaps more skills.

Kiritea: I think it opens up a whole new world. You don’t know that some things exist, and it gives a good number of tasters into different elements of the industry that you could potentially do.

Even if you decided you hate a certain aspect of design at least you’ve got the knowledge of something basic.

Ella Todd working on her workbook for final hand in.

Interview with James Reed and Georgia Cullen about their AR Experience for the story telling of the history of Dunedin and what was once where The Hub stands.

What attracted you to studying Communication Design?

Georgia: I really like people-orientated design, honest design, and sustainability.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

James: I read about it on the Otago Polytechnic website and thought it would be a fun course that would give me skills and opportunities in the game’s world.

Georgia: I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and then I went to the Otago Polytechnic Open Day. I didn’t know this course existed, but I came across the talk they were having on the 5th floor, and I thought that it sounded really fun.

James: I created a 3D animation model of the Otago Polytechnic Hub and an Eden street sign. I put these two elements in an animation video which was then put into AR with audio as well as tracking images and QR codes.

Georgia: I created a sequence of photos of the landscape of Dunedin changing and developing over time which was turned into a video with audio that was put into AR software.

Were your expectations met?

James: Yes, I think the best part about this course is how in first year I got to try out all the courses that were offered and knew that gaming was something I was really passionate about.

Georgia: Yes, I think it helped me work out what pathway I was interested in the design world.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

Georgia: Leaning about AR was interesting and something new which is happening in the design world and having this skill is handy since I will be entering the design world after I graduate at the end of this year. I did a lot of visual research looking around local Museums and I always found myself being attracted to sites with a large amount of visual content. The photographs made it easier to show the development of Dunedin over time.

What are your values as a designer?

James: I am mostly interested in games, accessibility is a big one because I want everyone to be able to play as well as catering to everyone’s needs.

Communication is a big key value too.

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James: I visually represented what was once there and using 3D modeling to make it feel real. I used 3D animation to bring back to life Eden Street which used to run through the block that Otago Polytechnic Hub has been built.

with gaming clients and companies.

Contacts for these companies and clients are given to you by the Otago Polytechnic lectures.

Georgia: Do it, go crazy, it’s fun. Worth your time and money, It’s short and sweet.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

James: Learning AR software and making 3D illustrations that would work in AR. Georgia: Learning AR software as well as learning how to cut audio and make tracking images and QR codes.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

James: Yes, I learned more about gaming programs and code.

Georgia: Yes, I am feeling more comfortable with the computer programs as well as how to work with clients and how to communicate my ideas.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Georgia Cullen working on a presentation to present her final design project outcome.

James: It’s pretty good for gaming, the gaming aspect of the course has improved and there are good opportunities for working

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First Year Interview with Evelina Noah, Caleb Brown & Justina King about the booklets they made about Māori New Zealand designer Johnson Witehira

“No degree is worth more than your mental health” - Justina King

What was the brief for this project?

Create a full-colour multi-page publication that showcases a given designer and their work. You will be given a font as the main typeface to use for your publication and will credit all images.

The publication design will be influenced by the designer’s style. This project aims to create a consistent and coherent publication that ebbs and flows as a whole.

What attracted you to taking Communication Design?

Evie: I think it was a large number of different design courses within the first year of the course. To be able to do film, photography, and animation all in one degree and explore all these different areas and helped me figure out what part of design I was really interested in.

Caleb: I had a few friends from high school in the year above me who took the course and they said it was great. I also came up from Invercargill for the Tertiary Open day and I thought the course sounded like something I would be really interested in studying.

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Were your expectations met?

Evie: I have really enjoyed trying out a lot of different things so far but my expectations have been met in the way of learning a large range of design communication skills.

Caleb: I expected that in first year I would get to try out all the different classes and courses that design communication offers and this helped me find the design path I was most interested in.

Do you have any values as a designer?

Justina: Bi-culturism is a value of mine as well as sustainability and using design to promote human rights. Being bi-cultural myself I think it is very important that it is being taught to us at Otago Polytechnic in the DCC (Design, Culture, and Context) Class.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

The brief was to create a 12 page A5 booklet about a New Zealand designer which was randomly picked out for each of us as well as a randomly picked font to use throughout the whole booklet. Even though we were all in different classes we all got Johnson Witehira but we got different typefaces we had to work with.

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What inspired you to create this style for your project?

Evie: The designer I had was Johnson Witehira and he is mainly a New Zealand artist/designer. All of his work is very decorative and very connected to his culture and his beliefs. The whole design for the booklet had to be inspired by the designer but because Witehira is Māori, I didn’t feel comfortable designing my own things inspired from his work because it is all very culturally significant to him. I used his own imagery and tried to work and mix it together for the spread layouts.

Justina: I went to the talk that Johnson Witehira did at Otago Polytechnic and he solidified what we had been learning in DCC. It was a good experience because I got to learn more about his work and I think he’s a really cool designer and he’s done a lot of stuff that needs to happen in New Zealand. At the same time, I felt a bit uncomfortable because it is not my culture and within collaboration or consolation I don’t want to take his design and use it how I think it might look nice because that is a different value than what we have been taught about bi-cultural design.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

Evie: Before doing this course I didn’t have any experience with the software and this project was mainly using InDesign so I got to learn the basic skills for the adobe programs.

Justina: I learned how important it is to be conscious about what you’re designing for and not taking culture designs and recreating them to look visually pleasing but leaving them as the designer made them because every pattern has a different meaning and that meaning should never be lost when thinking about the values of the work that you’re presenting.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

Evie: Because of the Māori Designer, the biggest challenge for me was how I wanted to portray his work because I didn’t want it to come across as me putting my own perspective of his design. I just wanted to showcase his work in the most respectful and culturally appropriate way.

Caleb: It was challenging as Witehira was a Māori designer and he used mostly Māori patterns because I had no idea what they meant. I found a safe way to work with that was just to use his artwork and not to try and recreate it myself so that the artwork wouldn’t have different meanings. This is something you want to avoid especially without doing a consultation with the designer.

Justina: I thought it was really challenging because we have been

learning about bi-culturalism in DCC and how it is really important not to take elements from another culture and use them however you like.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Evie: Yes definitely. I had no experience with the software and now I feel comfortable enough to use the Adobe programs by myself.

Caleb: Yes definitely. There are a lot of small techniques within the different software that you wouldn’t really learn unless you had someone to teach you which is nice because the small techniques are really handy to know.

Justina: I have learned so much about spread layouts and now have a better idea about how elements should work on the pages. I can feel myself getting faster at different skills each time I design something.

What are your thoughts on bicultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

Evie: We have covered a lot in DCC. I think it is really important to be uplifting voices to share the cultural design but also being as respectful as you can with how you’re portraying the cultural design elements.

Caleb: I feel like it is important to communicate with people to create outcomes that include different cultures in the correct way by getting approval from the right people. I think it is very valuable that we learn about bi-cultural practices because I has no idea it was a part of design until I started studying at Otago Polytechnic, and I think about it a lot when designing.

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Justina: I think it is definitely something you need to learn about when becoming a designer and it is not something you can ignore. I think it is important that over minority cultures have their cultures represented in a way that they feel is the most appropriate for their culture.

Consultation is really important for this because we don’t want to represent other cultures in a western perspective but in a way that they want their culture represented because it is their culture.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Justina: I was reading an article the other day and I found out that your online activities have a big impact on the environment as well. Online activities also release carbon dioxide and using physical materials do this too, but not many people know that their online activities to this.

Online activities have an impact on the environment just as much as plastic does.

Four billion people use the internet so 56% of people in the world are using the internet at the same time and it does realise carbon dioxide which has a big impact on the environment. So it is not necessarily better to consume media digitally than it is to receive the printed publication.

within the first eight months of the course which has been really helpful.

The only tip I have is to go to class and it will make all the difference.

Caleb: Do it. It is a great opportunity to get your head around how designers operate and how we think and it is a lovely environment here working with other people. It is a great opportunity and everyone should take it up.

Justina: I think people who decide to work in design when starting out shouldn’t be too hard on themselves because everyone has a different background with what they have learned about design or art and different people have different skills. Don’t compare your work to others. If they have more experience, you will learn over time and if you put the effort and work in you will get better. The most important piece of advice I can give you is that studying is never as important as your mental health, always put your health first.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Evie: Based on my experience so far I have really enjoyed the course and being able to try out different things and figuring out what design areas I am interested in all

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Games Stream Interview with second years Greg Tweed, JD Rademeyer, Blair Roberson and Samantha Lindsey about their group game they are making called Nest of Lies.

What was the brief for this project?

We are working on a group stealth game called Nest of Lies that has to be non-violent. It has to be a ten to fifteen-minute playable game where storytelling was a big element and it has to be a finished game experience within that time frame.

What attracted you to taking Communication Design?

Samantha: I enjoyed doing art during high school and thought it could take me somewhere which is why I decided to take Communication Design.

Greg: I liked doing art in high school as well and one thing that attracted me to this course was how broad first year was and how it allowed us to take all the classes that were offered. I liked how the first year allowed you to test out new things and find out what you were really interested in.

Were your expectations met?

Samantha: When I signed up for this course I didn’t really know what to expect and I thought it would all be graphic design based. But then I found out there was photography, film, and gaming which I wasn’t aware of but it was so cool to try it all out.

Blair: I did the certificate course before the Bachelors

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of Design Communication so I had more of an idea of what this course would offer because of how broad the six month certificate class was and I knew that this course would be more advanced then the certificate course.

so it softened some violence throughout the game. We have a soft violence storyline but you don’t see any of the violence happen throughout the game.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

What are your values as a designer?

Blair: I like to push the boundaries and incorporate a lot of humour into my design outcomes.

Greg: I like storytelling and creating different layers and stories within a story so it is more interesting for the viewers.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

Greg: We are learning a new game program called unity but when creating a game you get to learn new code every day.

Blair: We got to use all the skills we learned from all the other game classes such as 3D modeling and coding and we got to incorporate all of these skills into this one game.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

We had to pitch our game to the Bouncing Monkey game organisation who is sort of like our mentors for this project. We had to present a playable game as well as a presentation that explained our design process, storytelling, and character design.

We created 3D animal characters for the game too.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

JD: We did a lot of visual research into other games that had similar storytelling and we found that the best way to have a less violent game is to have animals as the game characters.

Blair: Instead of using people for the characters we used animal/human hybrids

Blair: There’s always something. Whether the code doesn’t work, or you create something in a different program and it doesn’t work properly in the game.

There’s a lot of rewriting code to fix a problem within the game programs.

Greg: Game making is all computer-based so things will also go wrong but there’s always a way to fix it.

JD: We went into lockdown the day before we were going to design the game layout so designing a group game over video chat was definitely a big challenge.

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Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Blair: Yes easily, going from a certificate to a Bachelor of Design Communication my skills have improved so much over the last two years.

Samantha: My skills are consistently growing and I am learning new things every day.

Is there anything you would change about your final outcome?

JD: So far the game-making is going really well and I’m super happy with it. In game design, it is very easy to keep adding new things even once you have a finished game product.

Blair: The biggest problem you always seem to have in game design is that you think too big at the start and you keep having to scale the game idea back just so it is possible to complete within the hand-in date.

Greg: One thing you always need to be thinking about when working in a group project is that everyone is getting to contribute and working as a team to making sure everyone’s best skill gets to shine throughout the project.

Did working for a real client influence your design practice?

Blair: Yes because the client Bouncing Monkey made the brief for this project and they wanted us to design the game in their company gaming style.

Greg: When presenting our ideas to the clients they gave us really good feedback on how to make our game to the best of our abilities.

What are your thoughts on bicultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

Blair: It is always good to acknowledge culture when designing something but you need to be careful how you do it so you’re not appropriating someone else’s culture.

There are always certain steps you should follow when incorporating culture into the design and the most important thing is to find out is how the individuals want their culture represented.

Greg: It would be nice to be able to explore this within games because it is not normally done but if I was to do this I would do a lot of research and get approval from the right people and groups.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

JD: It is hard when it comes to games because it isn’t always practical because

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you can’t really choose the material and practices you use but it is more about if you can show sustainability through a game.

Blair: We did an assignment in DCC (Design, Culture, and Context) where we chose a game and had to write about how they use the four pillars of design throughout that game. It was really hard to write about because games are created on servers and there aren’t really any sustainable, sufficient servers out there.

Greg: There is a way where you can try and make your game as sufficient as possible so it doesn’t tax excessive power but that takes a lot of expertise. Digital sale instead of physical copies is the most sustainable option for marketing which I think the game community is already trying to do.

Samantha: There’s always the option to make a game all about sustainability and use it as a teaching tool.

Greg: There are so many fun things you get to try and I’m sure you’ll find something you’re really passionate about.

JD: There is a share range of classes you get to try out and you’ll find something you love.

Samantha: When I came into Design Communication I wanted to do graphic design and illustrations but then when I found out there was a games course I fell in love with it.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Blair: Do it, it’s fun and you get a learn a lot of different skills.

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MADE Publication Issue 2 2021 Edited and Designed by Kylie Woods Credits: All work is credited to the designers Typeface: Noto Sans, Janda Manatee Solid Sloppy typeface made by Kylie Woods Paper: ECO100 Recycled Middle spread made by Kylie Woods Photography for Post Cards taken by Riley Smith