Words with the DUSA diary cover artist

What inspired you to join the Diary artwork competition?

I was looking to do portfolio work and when I found out about the competition through DeakinSync, I thought it was interesting. Being able to produce digital artwork for Deakin looked fun and challenging which inspired me to give the competition a go!

Can you explain how you did your artwork?

I started off with browsing exterior environments of Deakin (Burwood Campus) for photo references. After, I tried to turn the photo reference into a digital artwork. It was challenging at first to make it look realistically the same, so I later removed any minimalistic parts (such as the light post) and focused the pre-production more on the environmental art style.

At the time I was digitally painting the artwork, I only intended to make the front cover look the same as the back cover. However, upon sending my artwork to DUSA, I was also requested to design a new back cover which I thought was awesome. I got to do more digital artwork for Deakin! The only constraint was to make the artwork look fun, vibrant and relevant to the student life at Deakin. The photo references can be found via the link below:

You can compare the original photo to my artwork to see what I've added and changed.

1) Front & back cover

2) Back Cover

What did you study at Deakin and do you have interest to do more artworks?

I recently finished my studies in Bachelor of Creative Arts (Animation and Motion Capture) and yes, I do have an interest to do more artworks.

What did you think when you found out you had won? Were you surprised?

I think it was exciting to win and have my artwork displayed on the student diaries. When I found out that I won, I thought about how I could continually improve on my artwork whilst making the requested changes, and yes, I was surprised.

What advice do you give others about design?

An advice I would give to others about design, would be wary of these questions: does the design look good and recognisable from a faraway distance? Is there anything that can be changed or improved on in the design? It is very challenging to look for ways to improve, especially when you’re looking at the design work over and over again. I think it's useful to build a broad range of questions as it helps to identify what the audiences want.

When working on design works, taking short breaks in between, or switching over to other projects then coming back to it later with a refreshed mind can help. I think the best advice I would give to others would be to start researching into other people's work (in the area that you're interested in) and be willing to ask others for feedback. Be prepared for any criticism and critique.