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June 2009 swinburne
Each year Dani creates 14 stamps for the
Chinese New Year series: “I am in the perfect
role for my experience and background.”
While Australia Post gives her free
reign with the design, which starts as a
series of concepts and is worked through
using computer imagery, the stamps must
incorporate traditional Chinese colours – red,
green and gold. The stamps also have to tell
the story of the animal represented. In the
12-year Chinese lunar cycle 2009 is the Year
of the Ox and last year, the first of the cycle,
was the Year of the Rat.
To develop the storyline, Dani immerses
herself in animal stories (she now has a
large library of animal books for inspiration
and reference) and Chinese and Australian
culture. More than 20 countries around the
world issue stamps to celebrate Chinese New
Year and Dani enjoys seeing the various
global interpretations, noting with a mildly
critical eye how many look like Disney
characters.
It takes about five months to complete
each year’s series, along with the storyline,
and already 2010’s Year of the Tiger
stamps are almost complete. When not
creating postage stamps Dani’s freelance
work is wide-ranging, although her animal
stamps are never far from her thoughts.
She is currently working on branding and
packaging concepts for Australian companies
– while keeping an eye out for inspirational
rabbit themes in readiness for 2011.
In what could be another artistic direction
change, Dani is one of six designers who
have been invited to submit concepts for this
year’s Australia Post Christmas stamp series.
“I have lots of ideas,” she says
enthusiastically, “because I’ve always
been an outsider looking in on the western
Christmas tradition.”
It has been a creative and inspiring
journey for a girl who left home for another
country carrying the heavy weight of family
misgivings on her shoulders.
Her parents considered art a poor career
choice, particularly given the financial
commitment they were making towards her
study. Dani’s response was to work doubly
hard, 9am to 9pm six days a week. “Study
and Swinburne became my life because
I didn’t want to let my parents down,”
she recalls.
Dani also believed that no matter how
artistically gifted she might prove to be, an
employer wants output … not realising then
that she would become her own boss and
master of her own artistic destiny.
She graduated with an honours degree
in graphic design in 1998 and recalls her
Swinburne years as a time to be free to “go a
little crazy” to broaden and hone her creativity.
“The main thing I learnt during my
studies – and probably the most important –
is about concepts. How to develop a concept
quickly,” she says.
“In the commercial world you don’t have
time for working through an idea in your
head and perfecting it. That is the difference
between, say, a junior designer and an art
director. The art director has a concept
straight away while the junior designer is
still refining their skills.”
To broaden herself as an artist Dani
continues to study, with her most recent
foray being into botanical illustration – an
exacting art that she hopes to bring into her
stamp designs.
“At Swinburne one of our units was
on screen printing and I found it quite
challenging, but now I realise it taught
me something new and showed me the
boundaries you have to work with in another
art form,” she says.
Dani is now an Australian citizen but
while waiting for her visa she worked around
the world and spent some time back in Hong
Kong working as a graphic artist.
“Everything there is geared to selling things
quickly, so it was throw-away design. I like
the fact my stamps last a long time and I feel
good knowing people see them all the time.”
Her parents, who only speak Chinese, are
also starting to understand her passion and
her achievement – particularly when Dani
sends home large Australia Post posters
issued to commemorate her work. “They are
very proud,” she says. ••
Contact. .
Swinburne University of Technology
1300 MY SWIN (1300 697 946)
magazine@swinburne.edu.au
www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine
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