Bella Forbes

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I’m Bella, a communication designer who treats design as a living language — something that moves between intellect, empathy, strategy and storytelling.

Design, for me, isn’t about making something aesthetic; it's about inspiring people, places and ideas to say something true. I believe every project starts with an idea worth understanding, and through research and experimentation, it earns its voice. To me, good design creates clear, confident and deeply human outcomes that express meaning rather than showing it off.

The intention behind my design practice is to blend the head and heart, to design as someone who understands people. I was taught to look beyond design itself: to study culture, ethics, psychology and behaviour, as well as exploring unrelated disciplines for alternative perspectives. If someone can feel an idea before they fully comprehend the design, it has already done its job successfully.

I like to make my work a little tongue-in-cheek; it keeps my strategic brain from becoming sterile and my creative side from drifting into chaos. Reflection is a constant in my process; I’m always revisiting my work to find where each project truly belongs and what it wants to communicate. Visually, I believe simplicity isn’t about absence, it’s about intention. Every element should have purpose, clarity, and reason. Good design doesn’t just deliver information; it invites dialogue, encouraging people to think, pause and connect.

Money Talks – Type Specimen Publication Design

Reframing the traditional type specimen as a critical cultural artefact rather than a neutral catalogue, examining how
typography operates not just as form but as ideological
instrument.

NewBLD – Blood Donation Awareness Campaign

Turning confusion into contribution, because Australia needs to donate more than 3%. By transforming uncertainty into understanding, NewBLD reframes blood donation not as an abstract act of goodwill, but as a clear, confident, and achievable action.

Coated – FMCG Packaging Refresh (Davidson Branding)

A brand refresh that combines sweet talk with straight-up flavour. Through confident colour blocking, restrained typography and playful tone of voice, this direction reframes Coated from a simple pantry treat to a gift-worthy indulgence.

In Other Words – Provoking Experience & Expression

A speculative design process exploring how graphic communication can express experiences that resist literal explanation. Centred on Near-Death Experience testimonies, the work challenges traditional clarity, treating abstraction not as decoration but as a language of its own.

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.