A huge congratulations to all of the School of Design Graduates for 2024!

It was wonderful to celebrate the completion of your studies together this year’s event - RMIT Design Grad shows 2024.

I was delighted to see the remarkable work on display from all programmes from undergraduate to masters and to be there to celebrate your fantastic achievements. I am very pleased to thank all the family, friends and partners who came and created the wonderful energy and atmosphere at the event across both days.

I would also like to extend a special note of congratulations to the following winners of the Dean’s awards 2024 and to wish everyone the best in your onward careers. We hope you keep in touch and look forward to seeing the amazing things you will achieve in your work in the future!

Andrea Siodmok
Dean, School of Design

The Dean's Awards, are in recognition for the pursuit of excellence, value and contribution through a relevant discipline design project. They are not necessarily about the highest grade, but rather seek to recognise a student, or student team, who have through a project brief, used their design expertise in the broadest sense to make the world a better place through their project and practice. Submissions will be evaluated on the grounds of design outcome, process, articulation of a values based approach to design, that include inclusion, diversity, reconciliation and care for the environment. 

Bachelor of Design (Animation and Interactive Media)

Mia Achatz

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Bachelor of Design
(Animation and Interactive Media)

Mia has contributed significantly to the programs community of practice throughout their study. throughout the Program. Mia has contributed excellent work to partnered studio projects aligned with with social impact, including work for Living Positive and Peter Mac Cancer Centre. Mia consistently demonstrates values of empathy, understanding and inclusion in both her contributions and individual practice. Mia is to be celebrated as a role model to the degree.

Bachelor of Design (Games)

B.S.F. Complex (Group): Bora Erdogan Sinead Garry Fentine Gard

2024 Dean’s Award Winners
Bachelor of Design (Games)

B.S.F. Complex is a character-driven comedy game, developed by Bora Erdogan, Sinead Garry, and Fentine Gard as their capstone project for the RMIT Bachelor of Design (Games). The team B.S.F. Complex team embodies an admirable dedication to collaboration, featuring all three creators' distinct creative voices while blending them into a coherent whole.

Bachelor of Design (Digital Media)

Adrian Frichitthavong

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Bachelor of Design (Digital Media)

Adrian has distinguished himself through his exceptional intertwining of creative ambition, technical skill, and community mindedness. He has produced outstanding work by synthesizing his learning across studios, as demonstrated by his installation NeuroMetrix Booth that is exhibited in the Design Grad Shows 2024. He also founded the Blender Meetup, an extracurricular 3D workshopping space, and has contributed extensively to student activities and exhibits.

Bachelor of Design (Communication Design)

Lulu Fox

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Bachelor of Design (Communcation Design)

Lulu has shown exemplary commitment to responsible design at RMIT, creating an inclusive Acknowledgment of Country for multiple projects. Her leadership in Indigenous inclusion has empowered peers, strengthened relationships across communities, and fostered learning in the Communication Design program, leaving a lasting impact on responsible practice.

Bachelor of Industrial Design (Honours)

Makushla Harper

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Bachelor of Industrial Design (Honours)

Makushla Harper is the 2024 Dean's Award Winner within the Industrial Design (Honours) program. Her outstanding design outcomes, peer to peer learning contributions, and consistent effort throughout her 4 year journey with us has been acknowledged by the witnessing staff and students. Makushla's heart is aligned to the outdoors and her design outcomes gravitate towards enhancing people's ventures into nature.

Her final Honours capstone project titled 'Ridgeline', is a mono-sourced, material backpack that integrates interactivity into the design, enabling greater dependence on sensory feedback in unlit environments and scenarios. These tactile sensory cues can alert users to vital information at night, such as water bladder remaining levels or the direction to access stored items through distinct surfaces and textures. A unique non-digital, materiality outcome, centred on hiker's needs to enhance safety and the overall experience in unpredictable natural environments.

Master of Communication Design

Master of Design Innovation and Technology (MDIT)

Fariz Hirzan

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Master of Design Innovation &
Technology (MDIT)

Fariz Hirzan has been an exceptional member of the MDIT student community. He brings a wealth of talent and dedication to every project and task he attempts. Fariz developed the project Pixel Fighter for his 2024 MDIT Major Project. The project explores how site-responsive interactive game design could be used to improve real-world experience through intrinsic motivation and engagement, his project is a professionally executed and deeply engaging take on how to experience Melbourne through gamifying; graffiti, coffee and laneways. Not only has Fariz produced a Major Project outcome of exceptionally high quality he has done this whilst also being a highly valued member of the MDIT student assistant team and he is the 2024 MDIT valedictorian. Well done Fariz!

Master of Animation, Games and Interactivity (MAGI)

Kay Kwan & Lam Le

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Master of Animation, Games
and Interactivity (MAGI)

Kay Kwan and Lam Le have created the remarkable and ground-breaking animated 360 degree film Coffin Room, which addresses the poverty and housing crisis that is experienced by many in Hong Kong who are forced to live in extremely small apartments with little to no privacy. The work has been internationally recognised in several animation and XR festivals and features an excellent combination of narrative design, animation skills, lighting, and 360 cinematography.

Master of Design Futures

Kitt

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Master of Design Futures

Kitt has crafted a transformation in his design practice to include design writing. Kitt was awarded the Design History Society award for Design Writing 2024 for his chapter in: Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific, edited By Yoko Akama, Joyce Yee. Kitt's chapter, Examining design orientations through Indigenous Filipino strengths perspective, draws on his cultural background and how it plays into his contemporary design approach.

Achaar: A showcase of South Asian Design, Typography and Cultural Identity' was an independent collaborative initiative by 11 Master of Communication Design students (two Semester 1 graduands, five Semester 2 graduands, and four continuing). It opened in the Building 9 Glashaus on 23 July 2024 as a way to build a community of practice and connect with the undergraduate Communication Design community and is ongoing.

ACHAAR (Group)

2024 Dean’s Award Winner
Master of Communication Design

  • Winner: ACHAAR (Group) - Ishaan Ambavane, Jarred Keith Labrooy, Tanisha Maria Naik, Satya Darshini Penmetsa, Kaushik Prabhu, Zaib Shaeen, George Thomas

    Special Mentions: Hei Kam, Mia Murone, Yew Qi Yap

  • Winner: Kristoffer Santos

    Special Mentions: Trudi Boatwright, Rachel Kraan, Stella Vassilion

  • Winner: Makushla Harper

    Special Mentions: Max O'Brien, Lenie Chin

  • Winner: Fariz Hirzan

    Special Mentions: Isabel O'Sullivan, Daniela Moreno, Echo Sun

  • Winner: Adrian Frichitthavong

    Special Mentions: Ma Katrina Engle, Hugh Fuchsen, Vivian Luh

  • Winner: Mia Achatz

    Special Mentions: Kath Yuan, Emily Wildfire, Barney Brooks

  • Winner: B.S.F. Complex (Group) - Bora Erdogan, Sinead Garry, Fentine Gard

  • Winner: Coffin Room (Group) - Wing Yan Kwan, Lam Le

    Special Mentions: Louis Fourie, Eamon Harte, Fitriani Revanda

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

We acknowledge the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin nations on whose unceded lands our student community nurtures their individual creative expression and collaborative design practices. 

We acknowledge the Ancestors and Elders, past and present, of the lands, waterways and seas of Naarm, where we learn and practice design. 

We acknowledge that we convene on the lands of the Traditional Custodians of Country and that sovereignty was never ceded here. We honour First Nations people, the rightful caretakers of Country, whose knowledge of, and love for lands, waterways, seas, culture, and community is immeasurable. 

As we get set to showcase the diverse voices of our generation, we honour the language groups of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People who have cared for Country through shared knowledge, love and respect. We try to listen deeply as we share this platform across disciplines, celebrating our creativity and dedication in this very old place. 

We acknowledge and admire 65,000 years of art and design existing across the eastern Kulin nations, in which we contextualise, experience and interpret our studies at RMIT.