Swinburne University Design Centre

The Living Room is a drop in centre for drug-affected youth. It provides assistance, care facilities and information for young people going through tough times. A team of workers at the Living Room secured funding to develop a major information campaign to increase awareness in its target market of Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmitted Infections.

This project team engaged Design Centre to conduct the preliminary user-centered research and then from these findings develop the multimedia and print components of the campaign.

The final outcomes included a range of characters developed to both engage and inform the audience. Outcomes developed by Design Centre include an interactive CD, postcards series, and informational booklet all contained within a *pizza box* style package.

View the STI information animations

Design Centre was invited to design an exhibition stand and publication to showcase the work completed through the CRC Wood Innovations project. The exhibition stand featured at Furnitex, a large furniture conference held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. This exhibition display was designed to provide the CRC team with the opportunity to demonstrate their achievements. The CRC Wood Innovations* research findings in the properties of wood for furniture construction were explained in the publication.

Since 2006 Inner South Community Health Service (ISCHS) has been working with the Swinburne University Multimedia Design Centre to produce a series of digital stories. The aim is to enable older people from living in public housing in the inner south area of Melbourne the opportunity to share an aspect of their lives through the development of a DVD resource.

‘Storytellers’ from across five public housing high-rise sites have been linked with multimedia design students to identify a piece of personal history and support each other in developing a three minute story that truly reflects the essence of each story teller through the use of personal memorabilia and digital animation.

Design students from Swinburne University were linked with nominated storytellers to help them develop and produce their individual stories. Storytellers met regularly with the students and the High Rise Support team to learn and support each other through the project.

The stories are very diverse, reflect the varied cultural and linguistic mix of the tenants, and are important in promoting a more positive image of older people living in public housing.

This third series encompasses two themes – the celebration of friendships and starting to explore the richness of our indigenous community. Five stories focus on the unique nature of friendships, which are often taken for granted; our first two indigenous stories provide an insight into the indigenous community.

In conjunction with Swinburne Centenary celebration, an exhibition and publication called Pen to Pixel was developed to highlight the evolution of design at Swinburne University over the past century. Nanette Carter researched and selected 10 Swinburne graduates over 10 decades, representative of a period these designers were featured in the publication and exhibition. The exhibition was held in July at Chapel off Chapel Gallery in Prahran. The publication was used as an exhibition catalogue and continues to be used by the Faculty of Design as a promotional piece.

The Bayley House Annual Report was a pro-bono project undertaken by Design Centre. Bayley House cares for intellectually disabled adults and this project provided Design Centre with a challenging opportunity to develop a concept that reflected the vibrant yet caring nature of the environment.

Esplora was a mobile phone game produced for Thomson Learning by Swinburne University Design Centre.
Esplora was aimed at Years 7 to 7 school children.
The game focus was on correct grammar, in particular matching words with their correct ‘articles’.
The game involved driving a scooter past various obstacles until an article stage is reached and them the player has to name the correct article.
The Esplora game is now being distributed with Thomson Learning Esplora textbooks.
The game can also be downloaded from http://www.esplora.com.au/content/view/40/72/

In 2007 Inner South Community Health Service (ISCHS) High Rise Support Team and Swinburne University Design Centre continued the successful program – “Tales from the High Rise” – enabling older people from public housing communities to share their stories with a wider audience.

With the success of the previous years ‘Tales from the High Rise’, the 2nd instalment had secured funding and also extended the brief by including voices of non- English speaking tenants.
Our project, Tales from the High Rise, has resulted from a partnership established with Swinburne University’s Design Centre* (Prahran Campus), their students and 9 tenants (story tellers) from the High Rise Support Program estates (King St, Victoria Ave, Union St, and Inkerman St).
The project is a collaboration between the high-rise storytellers, Inner South Community Health Service and Swinburne Design Centre.

The tenants teamed up with Swinburne honours students to create three-minute videos that combine the storyteller’s voice with memorabilia from their personal archives, such as photographs, film, certificates, music and sound.
The second series built on the pilot, and included stories in languages other than English, and brought together the many different nationalities that live side by side in public housing in the inner south of Melbourne.

The Gertrude Street Annual Report is a project that has been undertaken by the Design Centre for a number of years. The gallery provides studio and exhibition spaces for a variety of contemporary artists. The Annual Report forms a significant marketing device and requires students to develop an innovative solution that reflects the nature of the facilities and the artists.

Kana Chan was a mobile phone game produced for Thomson Learning by Swinburne University Design Centre. Kana Chan was aimed at Years 7 & 8 school children to teach them basic Japanese by hunting for specific Kana that makes up words. The game was design and developed by Swinburne University Design Centre using Flash Lite 2. The Kana Chan game is now being distributed with Thomson Learning Japanese textbooks.

The Inner South Community Health Old Persons Support Team and Swinburne University Design Centre launched a Digital Storytelling Project in 2006. This pilot project called “Tales from the High Rise” was a collaboration between Inner South and the Design Centre which was aimed at encouraging residents from public housing to share thier stories with a wider audience, to promote self worth amongst the participants and to foster a wider awareness of people in public housing. The project was launched to a packed house at the Design Gallery in Prahran.