Michelle Bennetto Design

I'm Michelle and here you can see some of my graphic design / illustration / photography work! Contact me at: [email protected]

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This poster is a Freelance project for a cocktail party at the NZRAF Officer’s Mess in Auckland. The theme was ‘Heaven and Hell’. The image was created in a art nouveau style using both Illustrator for the linework and Photoshop for the colouring to give it a more dappled effect. Then the type and background graphic was added to the image using InDesign.

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This poster is a Freelance project advertising for a Valentines Day event at the NZRAF Officer’s Mess in Auckland. The poster is supposed to be playful and welcoming, to appeal to hard working Air Force Officers to take a night off and celebrate with loved ones.

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This project came about after the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. The brief was to research the physical and emotional requirements to get through a post earthquake period. Exploring the different stages individuals experiences and coping processes to help them through difficult times targeting a specific audience. The group I chose to target were Tourists.

I began my thought process by thinking about what their needs are, they leave home to find adventure, knowledge, experience and change. Post traumatic stress from the earthquake would most likely lead them to want security, comfort, support and most importantly, communication with loved ones. Because of this, I chose to base my promotional material around the idea of an envelope which would contain all the information they would need.

Inside the envelope brochure there is information telling the reader what earthquakes are, as many would never have experienced one before, as well as telling them how to cope with it as well as a map of the Christchurch ‘Safe Zones’. Tucked into a pocket there is a postcard with “I will always remember Christchurch, New Zealand’ on the front and pre-written comments on the back for the person to fill in saying, what happened, where they were, how they got out and what they are doing/planning to do now. As well as this, to make it a bit more gimmickey and tourist friendly there is a set of nine stamps with essential items for an earthquake survival kit on them.

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The idea to create a family orientated version of the board game Cluedo came about during a conversation about everyone in the family’s interests, we tried to think of one main symbol, or icon which could represent everyone. It then turned into the game Cluedo. Twenty suspected murderers, twenty possible murder weapons and eleven scenes of murder it was a pretty full on board game.

The images on the cards and the board are all hand drawn and then put together and colour added in Photoshop. All the game pieces are made and painted by hand using clay.

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Family Portraits

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The brief here was to come up with a logo which represented the company, it was to be simple and get the message across.

When researching logos for logging companies, I discovered that most of them were humorous, putting a light spin on a not-so-light job. I wanted to make my logo a little less 'funny' and a bit more serious than the ones I found. The ‘hill’ in the background works in two ways, because of the context it looks like a hill, but in actual fact it is an outline of Davaar Island, in Ireland, where the company name derived from. The orange digger represents the machines used by the company. I used a strong font to emphasise the fact that it is a serious job and the company are serious and safe with the jobs that they do. The logo is embroidered on clothing. 

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Twenty-First Invitation

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The brief for this project was to take a word and make it into a 3D sculpture.

I started with the word "make-believe" which I chose because it is a word close to my heart because of my love for fairytales and fantasy. It took a lot of brainstorming to come up with this idea, and once I found it, a lot of time went into the process and how I would make it. The final product took about twelve hours to make. It is made with pages from fairytale books, sitting on a poem called "The Land of Story Books".

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I love drawing with pencil.

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During my degree I took Printmaking as an elective. We focused mostly on bookmaking and binding which I really enjoyed. There is something truly satisfying about creating something like this from scratch. Some of the binding styles I learned and you can see above were; saddle stitch, coptic stitch, Japanese style, concertina and secret belgian binding.

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JAMEA Magazine is a magazine that I started in 2003 on my old Windows 97 computer. It started off as just messing around creating a cover for a magazine, putting together the first letters of my cousin's names for the title, some biographic pages (which are hilarious now) and a few recipies which became a christmas present for my Gran. Ever since, me and my cousins have made a magazine for Gran for christmas every couple of years, documenting out lives and hobbies at the time. This is the newest edition of the magazine, and definitely the one I am most proud of.

Click here to read JAMEA 2012!

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Hand drawn typography poster I illustrated as a gift.

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This is my 21st invitation design, the other side shows a picture of me as a kid.

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This poster design was done for a local theatre group in which my family is involved with. The play was an original, written by David Nicholls, in which a group of students were taken on a journey throughout the history of musical theatre. The play included songs such as "I dreamed a dream" from Les Mis, "Rhythm of Life" from Sweet Charity, "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific and an emotional scene about the Christchurch earthquake where the cast sung "We are Cantabrians" in the tune of "We are the Champions" by Queen. 

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The last semester of my degree, my class got to write our own briefs and get full creative freedom. We had to do everything, write the brief, target audience profiles, research, and then finally the design.

I started with the idea of appreciation in mind. I wanted people to stop and think about the things that really matter in life, as we have turned into such a materialistic world. I wanted to enlighten them. My campaign was targeted at young females, because I think that that market has the biggest issue with materialism, they are constantly surrounded by technology, for example,  Facebook, mobile phones, twitter, even the magazines aimed at teenage girls are full of superficial things.  

I did a lot of research, wrote all the articles myself, the photographs are my own, and I even created a font, which is called "the little things" because from far away it is a solid font, but when you look closer you see that it's made of a whole bunch of different things.

The world around us is such a beautiful place, and we are really only here for a short time, so it seems such a waste to spend your time thinking about materialistic things when you can get outside and enjoy the little things that are so unique to our world. I'm not asking for a whole different lifestyle, just that the little things that bring you joy are given a little bit more appreciation and credit.

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The brief was to take the author’s piece of writing and explanation, and produce it into two posters that embodied the meaning behind it. This project was a collaboration between CPIT School of Art and Design, and the Maori language school, Te Puna Wanaka. We were given a student's piece of writing, which was almost like a proverb, and we had to interpret it visually. I worked with Stevie-Jane Mutu from Te Puna Wanaka, and her piece of writing translates to: “One cannot be articulate and eloquent, or make imaginative allusions to mythology and proverb in a language that one does not speak.”

My first poster the words have been linked into a very well known Maori motif. You have to look hard to decipher the words in the Tiki, unless you know them well. So unless you understand the language, you can't completely understand the Tiki icon.

For my second poster, I created a font. I took a celtic-style font and combined it with Maori patterns. This linked to another project in which I was looking at the similarities between the Maori and Celtic culture - even though they are on other sides of the world. They work so well together that you couldn't say straight away whether the font was Maori or Celtic inspired.

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Brief: “Nuclear power is an emotive issue, especially for New Zealanders. By engaging in thorough research of the subject you are to present a rational case for the consideration of nuclear power as an energy source for New Zealand’s future.” My campaign was built around piecing together for yourself the best future for power in New Zealand. Having the knowledge to be able to make important choices about the future is power. The power of understanding and educated thinking by yourself. My target market was young adults, those who are just learning to make big decisions for themselves who need have all the facts put infront of them to be able to make a decision and first need a little push in the right direction. I wanted to invite the target market to come and listen to the facts about nuclear power. I wanted to invite them to think about what they themselves thought the solution to the problem was. Many new Zealanders don't understand Nuclear power - which is one of the reasons they are so against it.  All of the pieces are printed on recycled, textured paper - to further reiterate the eco-friendly side of nuclear power. When flicking through a magazine and your fingers fall on a page with a rough textured as opposed to your usual fine and glossy, the reader is forced to stop and see why this page gets special treatment.