Isabella Gruizinga

Communication Design

Isabella Gruizinga is graduating with a double bachelor’s degree in Design and Business from Swinburne University of Technology. She has always been a creative type, spending most of her final years of high school in the Viscom classroom and painting in her spare time.

Having majored in Communication Design and Marketing, Isabella has learned to create design with purpose and for change. Her experience in marketing provides all the vital skill sets to analyse and adapt a business to best benefit it in its current climate. These abilities are crucial for sustaining a carefully managed piece of work with a personal touch. Something important to Isabella is working in a creative space, alongside other creatives.

Having a mum who is an artist and a dad as a designer, it was destined that her maths skills wouldn’t be the greatest, but instead be surrounded by creativity growing up has without a doubt stuck with her and shaped her into who she is today. In her spare time, she loves to create hands-on crafts, such as miniature watercolour portraits. Aside from the creative stuff, she loves to travel, spend time with her dog and watch tv shows aimlessly.

Drink Spiking Campaign

Publication Design

Bike Paths of Zell - Map

Instinct Branding Project

T2 Lunar New Year Poster Campaign

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.