Euan Fraser
Visual Communication Design, 2022
As an up-and-coming graphic designer in the Canberra region, I want to design for people who not only appreciate my work but value it. I want to surround myself with clients who allow me to see their vision and provide me with honest feedback throughout the design process. This would most likely involve start-ups that are passionate about their work.
Completing my bachelor of design in visual communication design at the end of 2022, I have learned the inner workings of some of Adobe Suite’s best programs. These include Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects. Through a number of individual and group projects, I have been able to streamline my processes across all software applications. Outside my degree, I have gained over a year of experience within the industry at a digital marketing agency. Here, I have further enhanced my skills and abilities over 30 different projects and have had the opportunity to manage over five.
Within a team setting, I enjoy learning new skills and asking questions. Having the ability to understand each process involved in a project has allowed me to help out when other team members aren’t able to complete a task and explain each step involved to the client. Helping both my clients and team members is what I do best.
With my current skills and work experience, I can help bring new ideas to the table!
I already have a job, but thanks for looking.
Selected Portfolio
MACRO (Packaging Design)
Within a previous research report into sustainable packaging, I discovered that Macro’s Spiral Pasta’s original packaging wasn’t reflective of the brand's organic aesthetic, being completely made out of high-density polyethylene. This influenced my decision to create the new packaging with 320gsm enviro-boards and a small plastic window to view the product inside, while also bumping up the price point to match a mid-to-premium range product. As the product is exclusive to Woolworths stores, I focused on the in-store experience for my packaging. Due to this, my secondary packaging became both my shipping and shelf display box through the incorporation of a perforated line along the box to allow the primary packaging to be revealed and placed collectively on the shelf. For this project, I constructed a statement to base my design around; “To embrace the natural elements of organic cooking”. This statement formed the decision to use the silhouettes of wheat strands as a prominent feature in my design to express the one and only ingredient within the product (durum wheat). With this in mind, I created the dielines for both the primary and secondary packaging, worked with a printer to create the physical packaging, assembled the product and took a photoshoot for posters and social media posts.
Guruhive (Promotional Billboard Mockup)
Guruhive’ is a conceptual government run program that hires South Sudanese tertiary educated refugees, who are unable to find work, into a mentoring program that helps South Sudanese youth undergoing their studies (primary school, high school, college, and even some university studies). The concept itself was created as a design solution for a cultural issue we discovered in Australia. The designs are intended to cater to the youth and families who are seeking help for their children. Using black and yellow, colours symbolic to South Sudan, the eye-catching designs attract the attention of the target audience and draw them in with their approachable and uplifting imagery and playfulness with the composition. Equally as important as the designs, the placement is key in allowing the target audience to be able to discover and access the program. With many South Sudanese families without access to reliable internet and technology, the designs have been intended to be used through traditional mediums such as billboards, posters and brochures. The overall project covered each touchpoint, from ideation, to creation and finally, implementation.
The Bush Capital Shield (Coat of Arms)
The 2021 2nd year visual communication design class had the opportunity to create new designs to potentially replace the outdated Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Coat of Arms. With the ACT Government, multiple stakeholders and the ACT community to design for, each student had to skillfully juggle the wide array of target audience’s desires into one succinct design. I planned on balancing the broad needs of our target audience through three core ideas; diverse, contemporary and inclusive symbolism. With these ideas of symbolism in mind, the overarching idea that bonded all three core ideas was formed through an emphasis on ‘The Bush Capital’. By connecting the ACT back to the land, the community is able to ground itself through a shared connection. This common goal is emphasised through the heavy implementation of flora and fauna within the ‘Bush Capital Shield’. The design of these illustrations is purposefully minimal for effective reproductive use and as a form of contemporary design (e.g., the illustration of the Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby). Indigenous symbolism at the top of the shield and the illustration of the grinding stones relates to the Indigenous people’s connection to the land and aims to educate those outside of Indigenous descent and to replicate this connection to the land as a diverse and inclusive community. Overall, the Bush Capital Shield aims to enrich the idea of ‘The Bush Capital’ through contemporary design and pays tribute to the ACTs past in order to reconcile together so that the territory may continue to prosper as a diverse and inclusive territory into the future.
Elmov's World & Tokyo Has Fallen (Printworks)
Moving towards the abstract side of my graphic design skills, I decided to create a number of printworks to sell for the University of Canberra’s Market Day. These works combined were targeted towards young adults; the predominant demographic found within the campus. Stylistically, the pieces of art featured on the various t-shirts and tote bags are highly comic-like. ‘Elmov’s World’ features a grinning, red, hairy monster rising above the clouds. A little human-like creature can be seen sitting atop of the monster's broken tooth. Mt Fuji has also been included, connecting the work to ‘Tokyo Has Fallen’. While the monster’s eyes are closed, its third eye is wide open. This ‘all seeing eye’ connects the monster to religious symbolism. The idea of a ‘third eye’ has ties with higher consciousnesses and has been used in modern times as a connection to alternate realms and different states of being. ‘Tokyo Has Fallen’ showcases the Tokyo skyline with Mt Fuji in the distance. Featuring eyes and a mouth, Mt Fuji grins at the sight of Tokyo being destroyed by a meteor strike. As the artstyle also has ties to that of Japanese manga, I used Tokyo as the basis for my concept. The juxtaposition between Mt Fuji’s joyful emotions with the destruction of Tokyo showcases the fragility of humankind, persistence of nature and flipping the relationship between the two on its head with nature destroying humanity - rather than the other way around.