Meet four Shillington graduates and hear their graphic design stories

It’s easy to stereotype graphic designers as hipsters quaffing flat whites but the truth is that all sorts of people enter the industry. Shillington is one of those organisations helping train up people from a diverse range of backgrounds and giving them industry-ready technical skills and conceptual know-how.

They commissioned Melbourne-based content agency Commoner to produce these four films featuring some of their recent graduates, all of whom have come to graphic design from unusual routes. So we meet Crystal Lin, who trained as a classical viola player before studying at Shillington and Sinead Murphy, who was working in fashion in New York before moving to Australia to become a graphic designer.

Elsewhere we’re introduced to Myles Sharpe and Paul Mckie, who previously specialised in signage and marketing respectively, and former architecture student Ben Peters, who carved out a career in fashion with the graphic design skills he picked up at Shillington. Similarly Paul, Myles, Sinead and Crystal have gone on to find their niches, winning awards, being featured in design books and starting their own companies.

“It’s how our students use the skills they’ve learnt at Shillington that really excites us,” UK director Sarah McHugh says. “Their stories tell of the possibilities out there for graphic designers to create a career filled with passion and purpose.”