Senior Graphic Designer, Sydney Festival

Melody Yee

Why Shillington? What made our design course stand out from the rest?

For anyone reading this, I’ll save you the time and tell you I poured my way through every page on Shillington’s site, looking for any sign that this wasn’t the place I needed to be. With every Shillo IG post, I saw exactly the kind of briefs that I wanted to work on! This was the standout thing for me—the brief-based structure of the course, with your work ultimately geared towards a portfolio. It made every day of 13 weeks industry-relevant, practical and focused which was a totally different experience to my 4 years at university.

What were you up to before Shillington? Why did you take the plunge and enrol?

I was working as a Graphics Manager for four brands that I love—West Elm, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids and Williams Sonoma. It was a mix of graphic design and managing production of everything print-based across 20 stores. I was pretty happy and comfortable, but slowly ‘comfortable’ started to feel unsettling as I felt I wasn’t learning anything new anymore. As for the ‘why’, here is a full view of my personal brain dump before committing to my decision! ivegot99reasons.com

And yes, reason #8 haunts me as the alignment is so clearly off. I pray the inimitable Alice Lo (1 of 3 amazing teachers I had) never discovers this mobile un-responsive site. Full content only loads on desktop, sorry Alice!!

Did you make any meaningful connections with teachers or fellow students during the course?

Absolutely. I feel so lucky to have gone through that intense time with my particular group. Any one of us could reach out to the other for advice or a second set of eyes. We still catch up and our group chat can get hectic when we all pile on about something! On the teaching front, Tim, Alice and Missy made everything worth it. We had THREE incredible teachers always giving, and so generous with their teaching. I think theirs is such an honourable vocation.

What would you say to someone who is sceptical about the Shillington course?

From someone who was sceptical themselves, I can tell you it was worth everything. I wouldn’t be writing any of this if it wasn’t!

Visit Melody’s website and read her full interview on the blog.