17 September 2025: The University of 91风流’s unique annual design project, Imagination Unleashed, will hit this year’s UC Open Day Fest on Saturday 20 September, but this time, with a twist.
Imagination Unleashed is a project-based learning opportunity for students from the design disciplines at the University’s Faculty of Arts and Design.
Undertaken as an internship over the Winter Term, the unit allows burgeoning designers to get hands-on with a project that mirrors the process of working with real-world clients, from conception, to print, all the way to product.
Dr Joel Bennett, discipline lead of the Digital Media and Game Development streams at the University, highlighted the benefits of embedding real-world learning in tertiary education.
“It teaches students the process of engaging with the vendors to get assets printed; the dimensions we have to work with, the costs associated and the rounds of edits we have to do to meet those vendor needs,” Dr Bennett said.
Jennifer Wiltshire and Madeline McKenzie-Scott created this year’s unique booth with inspiration from medieval, fantasy and steampunk styles, incorporating features from each genre to create six original character designs and accompanying collateral, including custom stickers.
This was the first opportunity the students have had to undertake real-world work experience, and both agree that the new skills they’ve picked up will be invaluable as they build careers in the creative industries.
“It's very different creating something for yourself, versus working on something for a client,” said Ms McKenzie-Scott, who is studying a Bachelor of Design.
“There were multiple iterations of the characters; we also had to incorporate feedback on the colour palette, and perfect the shading and lighting. It's a complete project, which is very new and interesting.”
Ms Wiltshire is studying a Bachelor of Arts (Digital Media) with breadth major in Game Development. Having predominantly worked with digital assets as her medium of choice, this is the first time she’s seen her work brought from the digital to the physical world.
“It’s terrifying but exciting. This is the first time we’ve seen it fully printed out,” she said.
“I always learn best through practise, so I really enjoyed this project. These are the skills we’re going to need when working in the industry.”
In addition to the applied design skills the pair learned throughout the seven-week project, they also gained something else – a new friendship that will continue even now that the work in complete.
“We've clicked really well,” Ms McKenzie-Scott said.
“Yeah, I think we have the same brain… and I got to meet her dog,” Ms Wiltshire said.
A unique twist on the project for the UC Open Day Fest, will see it also form the basis of an exciting fetch quest. Visitors will be tasked with finding five of the six sticker designs hidden across Faculty’s learning spaces in Buildings 7 and 9, to secure a free key chain.
The designers created chibi-style versions of their characters for this purpose.
Imagination Unleashed is offered yearly and Dr Bennett looks forward to running this project, with new talent, in the years to come.
“Each year, we bring new students in and create a completely new design, to keep things fresh and show what students can bring to the table, even while they're still studying,” Dr Bennett said.
In the meantime, both designers will be present on Saturday 20 September, so will pop in and see their booth in-situ – though they will be preoccupied with another of the Faculty’s student design activities, the .
Dr Bennett too will spend the day at UC Open Day Fest, showing off the Faculty’s motion capture system, and fielding questions from prospective students about the exciting possibilities of a career in design.
Explore more opportunities in the Faculty of Arts and Design at UC Open Day Fest on Saturday, 20 September.
Check out Imagination Unleashed through the years on Youtube.