Rebecca Mok

Communication Design

Hello, my name is Rebecca Mok, and I compose my work under the title Boxturtle Creative. Specialising in illustration, branding, and social campaigns. I always begin my work with a good old-fashioned pencil.

As a designer, my work makes the world more accessible. By providing practical tools and strategies, I have the opportunity to invite people into the conversation.

Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to teach a variety of skills, ranging from ballet and horse riding to customer and food service. It is always a joy to find out how different people learn.

As well as being an artist and designer, I am also a keen gardener, animal lover, and proponent of wearing fun patterns and colours. You can find me tending to my plants and walking my dog no matter the weather.

Cat Riding

‘Cat riding is incredibly safe; they always land on their feet!’
A hand-drawn illustration of a cat jumping over the moon. This illustration was drawn in pencil on paper to create the concept and refine the shape. It was then redrawn digitally on a tablet.

State Library Victoria

Design a creative and engaging annual report for the State Library Victoria. After a visit to the library, reading the text, and brainstorming I chose to use the theme community which is a major part of their vision and values. I created a set of simple soft friendly illustrations to use throughout the publication. The chosen style really needed a clean and simple format to shine. This was created by using a bright colour scheme with plenty of white space to avoid it becoming eye-twisting and keeping the type choices simple and consistent.

Nine Lives

Nine Lives is a campaign to raise awareness of the cat problem in Australia and encourage people to take action by keeping their cats inside. There are millions of cats in Australia, found all over the country. In Australia cats are doing their job in the wrong context, we are responsible, and we can fix it.
We are asking cat owners to keep their cats inside 24/7 to preserve Australia's irreplaceable native animals. We plan to help our audience realise the impact their cats have, to help them understand why they are being asked to change their behaviour. We want young cat owners to care about their kitties, and our native fauna and encourage other cat owners to do the same, so we can eradicate harmful feral cat populations.
The campaign will advertise using posters, billboards, social media accounts with info, brochures, talks at cat cafes, and adoption events.

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show has history and a large audience, what it does lack is consistent timeless branding. I have created an updated visual brand, including a new set of brand marks, a colour palette, illustrations, a set of repeating patterns, typography, and a written style guide.
To design a brand mark, I have leant into the Australiana. The wordmark uses all caps to keep the very long title as simple and legible as possible. The typeface itself has rough organic edges to emphasize the natural theme of the show. The figure mark is in the form of a gum blossom. The cap of the blossom alludes to the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building, inside the mark there is also the shape of Australia in the light, the acronym of the show hidden among the stamens.

Growing Home

Design a houseplant festival in Melbourne. This festival is a celebration of indoor gardening. With workshops, vendors, and talks by professional horticulturalists. It should be fun for long-time houseplant gardeners as well as people who haven’t considered it before coming along.
The festival will be hosted in the atrium at Fed Square from the 20th to the 24th of September. The venue is accessible and easy to get to via public transport or car. With all the windows it has ample amounts of natural light which will lend itself well to the event.
I made the illustrations in a layered paper cut style. This style should add dimension to the illustration and reiterate the organic nature of the subject matter. I opted to leave the illustrations in their digital, format and use a mixture of drop shadow and paper texture to create the effect. I would have liked to do it by hand, but with the short time frame, the digital version allowed me to work to a far higher standard.

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.