Designer Lou Bloomer wins Indigenous branding competition

I guess 2021 being the fresh start for us all.

So I really wanted to depict a freshness, but also that boldness in the colours and you can see in the picture there's a bit of swirling, so it’s like, your ideas, your life it’s all swirling.

But there's a brightness and a cleanness and a freshness! Within the image, which is what I'm hoping our lives will be like.

On my back verandah, there’s a gum tree out the back, and it has these really bright red leaves amongst all of the green leaves, and they were flickering against the sunlight.

There’s a designer from around the area where I'm from in northern New South Wales, her name is Bronwyn Bancroft, she's an Indigenous designer. And she was, one of the first to show her work in like Paris, places like that.

So I think she's been a role model at least in the fashion area, for me, or at least the Indigenous fashion area.

When I looked at going back to uni, and I applied to RMIT, Ngarara Willim actually reached out to me and said, we have a pathway that might be of interest to you for you to get to the Bachelor level that you want.

So that was fantastic. They were able to get me fully signed up within a week. And then the week after I started the course.

But the whole way through they've been available to help me with anything I've needed. Make me, part of the community.

Since starting at RMIT, with the aid of Ngarara, I've looked at incorporating my Indigenous background into my work a lot more.

They've kind of shown that it's not shameful to be Aboriginal, which is something that the Australian education system often puts through.

Not many people realise that. So yeah, it's been it's been great to have them, you know, sharing information about other students, about alumni.

Also about like other Aboriginals in the community that are doing amazing things and it kind of inspires you to also do amazing things and to let you know that you can do amazing things, no matter who you are.