About Chris

Are you sitting comfortably?​

 

I've been a designer for as long as I can remember—and a teacher for nearly as long.

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My design career began in Melbourne shortly after completing a Diploma of Graphic Design at Chisholm Institute of Technology. I worked across three companies in the promotional clothing and merchandise sector, managing client projects from brief to delivery.

 

In those days, design meant repro cameras, hand-cut stencils, manual colour separations, Letraset transfer type and paste-up boards. It was meticulous, physical work—and it gave me a foundation in design thinking that no software tutorial can replicate.

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My career took a detour through academia, completing an Honours degree in Politics at La Trobe University with a focus on China, Japan and India. That degree set the course for the next chapter of my life.

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Over twenty years in China

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In 2001 I moved to Beijing to teach English. What began as an adventure that became a career. Over the following years I worked across Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Ningbo—teaching professional English to university students, senior executives at Huawei, Alibaba Cloud and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

 

I served as an IELTS examiner for the British Council. I led teams of up to seventeen teachers. I earned a Masters in Adult Education from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma in Education (P–12) from La Trobe, and a TAE40116 training qualification.

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TAFE NSW International asked me to establish and direct a new graphic design program at Ningbo City College—an Australian accredited qualification delivered in a joint venture. I spent the next six years developing curriculum, teaching typography, illustration, branding and visual communication. Mentoring a new generation of designers.

 

To bring my technical skills up to speed I completed an Advanced Diploma in Graphic Design—teaching the diploma course and studying the advanced diploma simultaneously. This took me through the COVID pandemic and was one of the most demanding yet rewarding periods of my working life.

 

Coming home

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I recently graduated with a Bachelor of Communication Design from Billy Blue College of Design at Torrens University—I was enrolled part-time and attended both in person and virtually, as my work commitments allowed. I've now returned to Brisbane, where I live with my partner and am building a design practice focused on brand identity, illustration and communication design.

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I bring to my work something that is genuinely unusual—the depth of someone who has designed by hand, understands production from first principles, has taught design theory and practice at an advanced level. In addition, I have spent nearly two decades communicating across cultural and linguistic boundaries. I know how to explain design to people who aren't designers—and I know why that matters.

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What I do now

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I take on brand identity and visual communication projects for businesses and organisations of all sizes. I have a particular interest in clients with Asia-Pacific connections, and in work that requires both strategic and visual thinking. My illustration practice spans traditional media—pen, ink, gouache, colour pencil—and digital work in Adobe Fresco and Illustrator.

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I'm also available for design education, curriculum development and facilitation projects.

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Qualifications:

 

• Bachelor of Communication Design—Billy Blue College of Design / Torrens University, 2025

• Advanced Diploma in Graphic Design—Australian Pacific College, 2021

• Masters in Adult Education (Global)—Monash University, 2016

• Graduate Diploma in Education (P–12)—La Trobe University, 2009

• Certificate IV Training & Assessment TAE40116—Fortress Learning, 2019

• Cambridge CELTA—La Trobe University Language Centre, 2003

• Bachelor of Arts, Politics (Honours)—La Trobe University, 2000

• Diploma of Graphic Design—Chisholm Institute of Technology, 1986

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Click on the contact link below to get in touch.