Graphic Design and Illustration Portfolio (Graduate)

GEORGIA DAWSON graphic design illustration fine art

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ILLUSTRATOR, ARTIST AND PLANT ENTHUSIAST. Style

Study

Hi, I’m Georgia Dawson, the creative spark behind Geo Illo. Geo Illo is my freelance persona, where I create work full of dreamy characters that explore girl power, fashion and surreal concepts. Plants, space and funky colours common themes in my work, where I translate day dreams of scenarios and characters into reality. This is also reflected in my design style through my use of bright colours, whimsical design elements and an illustrative approach to my works in print and publication.

I completed the Bachelor Design degree in 2019 at Griffith University QCA, and majored in Graphic Design and Communication. I have received multiple awards during the three year course including Academic Excellence Awards and the Liveworm award for Excellence at the 2019 graduates’ expo. I was also selected as an artist to paint a mural in the Southbank Liveworm Studio. In my second year I was accepted to study overseas as the European Institute of Design, and completed an intensive advanced summer course in June-July 2018, receiving top marks.

Highlights Throughout my studies, I have completed various freelance and commission opportunities ranging from logo design, magazine publication and fine art commissions. I also participated in both the Hidden Gems Art fair in October 2019 and the Ho’Made female artists Christmas markets in November 2019 as a vendor, selling fine art products.

Skills My skills include concept ideation and creative direction, branding, publication and layout, typography, print and digital design, photography, traditional and digital illustration and fine art skills as well as mural design and execution.

georgia_dawson@outlook.com 0448775247 https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgia-dawson-ab0811173 https://www.behance.net/georgia_da20db www.instagram.com/geo_illo www.geoillo.com

Skills • • • • • • • • •

time management organisation enthusiasm creativity innovation teamwork problem solving illustration photography

Areas of interest • • • • • •

editorial publication illustration fine art mural painting digital content

Achievements • Griffith University Academic Excellence award 2017, 2018, 2019 • Liveworm Excellence Award 2019 • Vendor at Hidden Gems Art Fair and Ho’Made female christmas markets • Overseas Study at the European Institute of Design (Advanced Graphic Design June-July 2018)

Education • Saint John Fisher College 2012–2016 • Griffith University QCA (June 2020 Graduate) 2017–2019

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Previous Experience University 2017–2019

European Institute of Design

I commenced tertiary study in 2017 at Griffith University Queensland College of Art, studying a Bachelor of Design. First year covered the foundations of design principles, practices and theory as well as Adobe applications.

Major classes began in second year, focusing on Graphic design and Communication. I looked at topics in depth such as Typography, Communications design, Branding, and Product design. The third and final year further explores these topics, and has a focus on a major capstone project involving all previously learnt skills.

2018

Freelance

2019

2017-2019 During University I completed a range of freelance work, including magazine execution and publication, commissions and logo design.

During 2019 I expanded my freelance work to include fine art pet commissions and personal paintings. This avenue also led me to develop my freelance branding and later in the year I was fortunate enough to vendor at both the Hidden Gems Art Fair and the Ho’Made christmas markets, where I created and produced my own prints and stickers to sell.

In June-July 2018 I had the opportunity to study overseas in Florence at the European Institute of Design, completing an Advanced Graphic Design Program. This experience gave me in depth insight and a new perspective on design. I completed the course with top marks for all classes. The course included typography, branding, wayfinding and trips to local museums to study their brand identity.

Internship During February-March 2019 I began an short internship with freelance designer Emma Ross, working with her on the Seed catalogues and advertising. I gained valuable experience in publication design.

Liveworm (Griffith) 2018–2019 Whilst studying at University, I completed multiple internships at the Griffith University Liveworm studio, which is a student run graphic design studio with a mentor, allowing students to gain real world experience by completing briefs for outside clients. During my second round in the studio, I was chosen to execute a mural design I had submitted into the studio space.

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This portfolio contains work in...

illustration

typography

branding

publication

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A Guide to an Inclusive Classroom: Teacher Workbook and Campaign

Identified Problem

Design Solution

Heteronormativity is defined as the concept of how heterosexual assumptions, privilege and related concepts are normalized due to the assumption that society is inherently heterosexual. Institutionalised heteronormativity heavily impacts children as during their developing years they are only exposed to these traditional teachings. By not being exposed to the current progressive attitudes of the 21st century, children are denied the space to explore their own identity which can lead to gender-based and lgbtqia related issues.

It is important to teach these types of content as there are children growing up with lgbtqia+ parents and family members, and children need to explore who they are and their own identity in a neutral environment. By integrating lgbtqia+ inclusive content into classroom literature of early grades with a focus on respect and understanding, the young minds of future generations can learn to be more aware and respectful of personal gender and sexuality based differences.

Studies have shown that teachers have experienced six types of responses when confronted with homophobic, transphobic and gender related bullying in the school environment which are: being nonchalant, avoiding a response, being uncertain, maintaining home and school boundaries, protecting students’ well-being, and embracing non-heteronormative sexualities.

The design outcome created to address this issue was an inclusive classroom guide to encourage more inclusive and open vocabulary and discussion between students and teachers surrounding gender and sexuality. With this guide, I sought to provide teachers with the tools and knowledge they need in order to feel more confident in having ageappropriate discussions with students and peers.

An accompanying campaign in the form of an inclusive seminar and workshop will cover more related material.

View this project on Behance for a look inside the guide.

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Musee de La Specola: Museum Re-brand

In June–July of 2018 I was fortunate enough to be able to study overseas at the European Institute of Design in Florence, Italy. I took part in an intensive Advanced Graphic Design course over three weeks, developing my skills and experiencing graphic design from a new perspective. I was mentored by tutors who had worked with the likes of Google and Gucci, gaining a deeper understanding of graphic design and its role in modern society. The major assignment completed was a complete re-branding of one of the local museum, ‘Musee de la Specola’. As part of the rebranding, a new logo, colour palette, font and style guide were designed along with comprehensive icons and a wayfinding system.

Advertising and extra collateral material was also developed. This was a group assignment, with team members from all over the world coming together to collaborate. My role within the group was the team manager and creative director, and I worked closely with all members throughout the whole project to ensure a cohesive final presentation. I collated all the material that each member had completed and designed the publication layouts for the final style guide and presentation, also working on the mock up and wayfinding design.

View this project on Behance for more style guide details.

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Ulysses for Millenials (Zine) Ulysses Monologue reinterpretation

View this project on Behance for more detail.

This is a reinterpretation of the final chapter of Ulysses, to appeal to a new targeted audience.

One concept identified in the last chapter of Ulysses that became very prominent was Molly’s tend to go on tangents in her monologue, which I connected to the gossiping of girls catching up after time a part in our modern day. I decided to explore this further, and focus my direction for the assignment on rewriting the passage using millennial slang and 21st century English terms.

This approach will definitely be engaging for a millennial audience, as the absence of grammar in the original text along with no paragraphs or hierarchy created an overwhelming piece to look at and therefore was deterring.

Millennials have an eye and appreciation for more interesting and daring typography choices.

Research shows that millennials are the most nostalgic generation in decades, which has been pushed along by the growing popularity and retuning trend of retro styles. Millennials are increasingly engaging with products and content that utilises designs that take inspiration from older analogue production methods.

Millennials tend to overlook text-dominant material. Clear visuals that are stimulating and effectively communicate ideas to the creative and visual minds of millennials are needed.

Millennial minimalism combines cleanliness and involves uncluttered layouts, effective use of white space and symmetry, and the use of flat design. The use of vibrant colours is appealing to millennials as in a word so saturated with content, something really needs to stand out and be eye-catching to be seen.

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UX/UI

Soundspace App Prototype: User experience based app prototype

Soundspace is an app prototype developed using knowledge of User Experience (UX) and User Interface Design (UI). Designed for a final year University assessment, this prototype design will aim to improve a small-scale situation uncovered through exploratory ethnographic and/or auto-ethnographic research of a single user.

IDENTIFIED PROBLEM: The user needs a way to access information for local music events and music hot-spots so that he can begin making connections and networking with the local music scene/ communities to allow him to become more involved in the music community and begin collaborating with other like-minded people.

SOLUTION: To design an app that will allow him to search locations for upcoming events and places that are hotspots for musically-minded people. These places and events can be saved and highlighted, with plenty of information provided on the venue, the event as well as previous and other upcoming events to help start conversation. A calendar feature will be where all of his favourited events appear so that he can plan and be prepared.

A separate ‘favourites’ feature will be a place where all the events and places he has pinned are available to view. There will also be a notifications feed where there will be posts and new information posted from events and venues he has saved, showing changes to events or new upcoming announcements that he may be able to attend.

A working prototype can be found on my Behance.

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Duomo Typeface Typeface Design

Duomo is a typeface that was designed to draw attention to the heavy influences of Gothic and Renaissance era architectural elements present in historic buildings throughout Italy. The main influence of the typeface is the details in the architectural design of the Cathedral Duomo in Florence. By focusing on the tile designs and shapes found on the building, a transitional serif typeface was designed with specific manipulations to weight, serif design, brackets and stress that mimicked these designs and shapes. This font pays homage to the history of Italian architectural design and its form can be used as both body and header text, with the alternate version with tiled designs in the letter forms acting as a display type variation.

relatively short ascenders and descenders

high contrast between thick and think weights

The transitional serif takes aspects from the architectural structure of the Duomo, which has been placed into the designs of the serifs. It can be seen both in the tiling and the structure of the building that there is a mix of straight and arched structures, stemming from the Gothic Renaissance and Romanesque influences of the period. In the design of the serifs, it can be seen that there are straight unbracketed serifs as well as serifs with arched brackets. This reflects the styles found on the building structure. To keep the designs consistent, all serifs on the baseline are unbracketed, with serifs on ascenders and descenders having the additional curved brackets.

View this project on my Behance for more details.

bracketed serifs along the x-height and ascenders

non-bracketed serifs along the baseline

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Ticket design for the Florence Cathedral using the ‘Duomo Typeface”.

Brochure design for the Florence Cathedral using the ‘Duomo Typeface”.

Window/glass sign that says “Welcome to the Cathedral of Florence”.

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Large Scale Mural Design At Liveworm Southbank

During my final year studying Graphic Design I participated in the Griffith QCA’s Liveworm studio course. Liveworm is the student-run graphic design studio that allows outside clients to send in briefs through the University for us to complete. One of my briefs was to create a mural design for the Liveworm space, and my design was selected. Below is the visual documentation of the process of painting the mural.

A projector was used as a stencil to lightly pencil in the design onto the cleaned white wall. Standard house paint was used, with a few base colours allowing for many shades to be mixed and created. All colours needed various coats of paint. The process took approximately 50 hours to complete. A video can be found on my Behance.

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A Collection of Illustration work Illustrations completed through University courses or as personal projects.

Vector character design, Illustrator.

Skateboard deck design, Illustrator.

Small Mural design, Illustrator.

Painted free-hand onto a designated wall space.

Pet commissions painted in gouache, acrylic, pencil, metalllic watercolours and oil pastel. Various sizes.

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Sticker designs and printed outcomes.

Designed and printed by myself.

A selection of Gouache, Digital and ink illustrations.

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A Collection of Typography work Illustrations completed through Uni courses or as personal projects.

GIF designs, working animations can be found on Behance.

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THANK YO U