Chloe Parkinson

I am a Melbourne-based communication designer. Prior to transferring into design, I was studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in history and philosophy. With these background interests, I believe it is important that design is socially conscious and that it’s impact is well-considered and responsible.

I am a lover of books and printed objects, and began this course with an interest in editorial design and publishing.

I spent a big part of 2023 studying at the Monash Prato Centre, Italy. This collaborative studio gave me an opportunity to learn about design in an international context, and allowed me to combine my interest in politically active design with my interest in printing.

Survival

The ‘Survival’ project was undertaken during my semester in Italy. I investigated how artists and designers utilise poster graphics as a way to place their own voice into important social movements. I believe that protest is the epitome of survival in human life. There is a rich history of designers participating in protest, particularly in the 20th century. I wanted to take this as an opportunity to learn about how they were able to take complex issues and turn them into bold and encouraging graphics that could strengthen a movement.

Survival

I created protest posters responding to a new anti-rave law introduced in Italy. This legislation bans the use of both public and private spaces for the purposes of hosting raves. The implementation of this law resulted in a wide scale protest at the end of 2022, as Italian raver's feared that it was limiting their freedoms in public space, and could have further repercussions on Italian social life and youth culture.

Survival

Harnessing more physical production methods was really important to me for this project. I took advantage of the screen printing facilities at Lottozero in Prato to print my protest designs on fabric and paper. The process of getting my hands dirty and creating outside of a digital context made me feel connected to designers of the past who extended their talents to voice their own political values. It was also an exciting challenge to learn this method of printing that I had not yet experimented with.

Survival

See more on this assignment at wethedissident.cargo.site/

I am where I am

This publication acts as a personal reflection on my time studying in Italy. While I was away, I thought a lot about the relationship between a person's identity and the place that they are from. In this publication, I expanded on the ways that each city I visited in Italy may have impacted how I think and feel, and how I approach life.

The spreads feature collages and imagery I collected throughout my travels, accompanied by my writing. My approach to designing this book was to keep things fast and simple. A lot of my thoughts and feelings that I wrote about were passing moments that I did not dwell on, so I wanted the visuals to be equally fleeting and roughly constructed.

Cinema Nova Identity

A rebranding of the Carlton icon 'Cinema Nova'. This project required me to create a brand new identity system for the cinema, organised in the form of a brand book for the final submission. The book included the guidelines for how the identity system should be used and recommendations for applications of the identity system, and also detailed the logic behind the branding system.

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