Community collaboration scores a goal for design
For Bachelor of Digital Media student Kelsey Redshaw, a local netball club has become the creative canvas for a professional-grade design project.
As part of CQUniversity’s Print Design unit, students were tasked to create three print deliverables for a real client.
In collaboration with Digital Media Associate Lecturer Michelle Roberts, high achieving students were given the opportunity to work with the client, with the potential for the designs to go to print.
“Runaways Netball Club really liked my design project, which led to the opportunity to continue collaborating with them through the Special Project unit,” Kelsey said.
“Initially, I thought it was a fantastic opportunity, as I hadn’t expected to work with real clients until third year.
“When I found out my design had been selected, I was incredibly excited to create additional work for the club and see my designs progress beyond an assignment and into real-world use. Having the chance to see my work printed and actively used was a really rewarding experience.”
Kelsey was tasked to design an A6 postcard to be distributed at primary schools to encourage students to register for the netball club.
The second deliverable involved designing collector cards featuring playing positions, aimed at helping young players learn the fundamentals of netball.
The final piece was a coach's companion booklet containing training information, coaching resources and game-day planning pages.
“Across all three designs, we needed to ensure consistent visual elements to create a cohesive design suite,” Kelsey said.
“From the club’s brief and with the content they already had produced it was important to maintain their friendly, family-oriented feel, while also ensuring the designs appealed to a wide age range. I focused on balancing creativity with practicality, doing my best to meet the client’s vision while making sure the outcomes were realistic and achievable."
She said working with a client helped to develop her skills across client communication, design refinement and preparation for print.
“Overall, the biggest lesson I learned in print design was to stay flexible and open to change - adaptability is key," she said.
“I learned very quickly not to become too attached to a design. Concepts can change multiple times before reaching the final outcome and I had to learn to accept last-minute changes or new ideas.
“Having the opportunity to gain real-world experience has definitely made me more confident in the type of work I’m doing.
“It’s taught me that not every day will be a good one, there will be creative standstills, moments of confusion, and times when you’re unsure what the client is really asking for. But I’ve learned that if you step back and look at the project from a different angle, things usually start to fall into place.
“With the support and mentorship of Michelle Roberts, I was always reassured that I was on the right track. Seeing my work go into production made me incredibly proud and reinforced that I am capable of creating meaningful and exciting design work.”
Kelsey said creative collaboration had helped to build her career readiness as a designer.
“It’s been rewarding to see how my study and professional role can complement each other and continue to build my confidence as a designer,” she said.
“Once I finish my degree, I hope to one day become a freelancer and start my own graphic design business. This experience has shown me that it’s something I can genuinely work towards.”
President of Runaways Netball Club Alicia Harris praised the high quality and creativity of the work, and said it had brought genuine value to the organisation.
“It was a great way to provide invaluable real-life experience for the student, and for us as a sporting club run on volunteers, we got real, professional products that we can utilise without adding pressure to our volunteers who already do so much," she said.
"This project has added value to our club in so many ways. We have been able to support our coaches with the ‘Coaches Companion’ which I hope has shown our coaches how much we appreciate what they do.
“We had the collector cards available to us in time for our grading weekend and the younger players loved them. They lined up patently to get their positional cards which was awesome to see.
"I am really looking forward to using the postcards to attract more players to our club in future seasons.”
CQUniversity currently offers Graphic Design as a major and minor across a range of courses, including the new Bachelor of Creative Media - designed to prepare professionals for design, technology and media industries.
