Stella Duggan

Hi, I’m Stella Duggan, a Naarm/Melbourne-based communication designer who loves bringing ideas to life through thoughtful design and a bit of creative mess. My work often blurs the line between digital and tactile, I have a soft spot for mixed media and paint, and I’m always finding ways to merge handmade textures with clean visual systems.

I’m passionate about publication design, branding, and spatial storytelling, with a focus on creating design experiences that feel both emotional and intentional. I enjoy exploring how perception and identity can be expressed visually, and I believe that the best design sits somewhere between clarity and curiosity.

Alongside my design degree, I also studied advertising as a double for two years, which deepened my understanding of audience engagement, strategy, and the psychology behind creative communication. That combination of design and advertising continues to shape how I approach each project, conceptually strong, visually driven, and people-focused.

When I’m not designing, you’ll usually find me painting, digging through art books for inspiration, or enjoying a slow coffee somewhere in Naarm.

I hold a Bachelor of Design (Communication Design) from Swinburne University of Technology, and yes, I’m currently accepting compliments (and commissions).

VOID

Void redefines the retail experience by transforming it into a cultural space that values reflection over consumption. Blending installation design with digital storytelling, the project challenges the fast-fashion mindset by encouraging visitors to question their relationship with material goods. The brand identity and visualisation, created using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, position Void as a concept store that replaces impulse with intention, where design becomes a catalyst for awareness, not excess.

GOOM

Goom celebrates Naarm’s underground creative community, bringing together music, fashion, and art under one vibrant identity. The festival’s branding channels the energy of live performance through distorted typography, layered textures, and a bold colour palette. This visual language reflects the raw authenticity of the event, honouring self-expression and collaboration. Implemented across stage visuals, posters, and social assets, Goom becomes a dynamic showcase of creative individuality.

FORMA

Forma is a collectible packaging series celebrating three of Alessi’s most iconic kettles, Il Conico, 9093/1, and Pito. Each design is reinterpreted as a miniature art object housed within a modular box system, balancing structure with creative play. Abstract forms, hand-drawn motifs, and bold iconography pays homage to Alessi’s postmodern legacy, creating a cohesive collection that feels both sculptural and timeless.

Behind The Mask

Inspired by The Phantom of the Opera, Behind the Mask explores identity, vulnerability, and the art of concealment through publication and installation design. The project reimagines the confessional as a space for anonymous honesty, where visitors contribute handwritten secrets within theatrical, mirror-lined booths. Dark, layered visuals and fragmented type capture the duality between appearance and truth, turning private emotion into collective reflection.

Surface & Depth

Surface & Depth examines how truth and illusion blur in the post-truth era, exploring how emotion often outweighs fact in shaping belief. Drawing inspiration from Hibbett’s analysis of political and cultural expression, the publication contrasts media strategies of figures like Obama and Trump to illustrate this shift. Fragmented typography, layered imagery, and visual distortion mirror the disorientation of modern communication, inviting readers to look beyond surface-level narratives.

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.