Catherine Falconer

Communication Design

I am a creative and inspired designer and media producer with a passion for strategic business minded design and meaningful storytelling. I am particularly interest in developing engaging and thoughtful brand identities and thoroughly enjoy the research and development stage of brand identity where I can identity gaps in the market or how to make the most successful design I can.

I have always had a passion for creating and find most of designs still begin with a pencil or paintbrush in hand. I love to bring fun into my designs and combine my interest in these tactile forms of design with my personal values of imagination and playfulness.

In addition to my design work, I’m often behind a camera. I am passionate about documentary story telling and have worked on 3 short documentaries during my time at Swinburne. Even when I’m not producing, I love capturing glimpses of beauty in the everyday as well as magnificent sights in my travels abroad with my small camera.

With my knowledge from completing my Bachelor of Design and Bachelor of Media and Communications I am excited to go into industry with a wide breadth of knowledge and experience in creating, designing and producing.

Academic Paper Redesign

I have designed the layout and graphics for this publication, ‘Twitter, Incivility and Presidential Communication’, that discusses Donal Trumps use of twitter during his campaign and the January 6th riots. I used different design elements to create a publication that remained highly legible but created a sense of chaos and unrest in the hopes that more people, possible without an interest in American politics, are more likely to pick it up off of the shelves.

Classic Reboot

Tasked with redesigning a classic novel as well as an enclosure to hold the publication I chose to redesign one of my personal favourites ‘Pride and Prejudice’. The enclosure features a design made to replicate an old classic book. Once the outer cover was ripped away it revealed a very bright and modern take on the book as well as over inclusions like a bookmark, poster, as well as additional dust covers depending on your style which was inspired by one of the major themes of the book; prejudice and misjudgment.

3 Packs

For my 3 packs assignment, my chosen contents was baking mixes. After some research I knew I wanted to come up with a solution that would stand out from anything else on the market. In my process I cut up small bits of paper to abstractly create baked goods which is what influenced the final design. The bold and bright colours will stand out of supermarket shelves and the modern packaging looks unlike anything currently being sold.

Childrens Zine

Using water colour I hand painted the illustrations for this Zine that was about being kind to yourself when you have bad mental health. I edited the illustrations in photoshop and crafted the Zine in Illustrator. The sweet frog characters are one of my favourite creations since being at Swinburne and my small cousins are the proud owners of the Zine now.

Wine Fest Design Campaign

For an imagines festival, Wine Fest, I created a design campaign that encompassed a direction publication, functional website, posters and merchandise. The graphics for this campaign were all hand illustrated using ink and then digitised. The graphics were inspired by the wonderful food and atmospheres at wineries.

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.