Pavement Print Studio: meet the RMIT students taking their screen-printing studio to Melbourne Design Week

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Pavement Print Studio: meet the RMIT students taking their screen-printing studio to Melbourne Design Week

A student-led mobile printmaking studio, born from RMIT's Associate Degree in Graphic Design, has been accepted into Melbourne Design Week 2026.

When a small group of graphic design students set up a mobile screen-printing station during O-Week, they never expected it to grow into something that would feature in the 2026 instalment of Melbourne Design Week.

Close to 90 new students left that day with something they had made themselves, and a personal connection to collaborative making with their new university community.

That was one of many activations for Pavement Print Studio, a student-led mobile printmaking initiative that emerged from RMIT's Associate Degree in Graphic Design in 2025.

Supported by RMIT's College of Vocational Education’s Creative Industries cluster, the studio operates out of a bike trailer: a nomadic setup that brings professional screen printing directly into public spaces across Melbourne.

A bike trailer with Pavement Print Studio logos engraved into it, it has lots of permaset inks and merchandise made by students.

The bike trailer at Pavement Print Studio’s City North activation. Credit Aan Ko

Graphic design students developed the studio from the ground up, some as volunteers and others as a part of their Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) experience, all supported by their teacher Simon Rankin.

“The studio operates visibly in public, making real artefacts, in real spaces, outside the simulation of normal design education,” said Simon.

“We're negotiating with stakeholders, working to actual deadlines, dealing with the constraints of partner organisations, and putting work out where people will see it and respond to it.

“We don't have a dedicated physical space, but we still want to be practising and collaborating. The trailer lets us turn whatever space we find ourselves in into something useful and creative,’ said Simon.

Six people wearing black line up against a wall of hit pink and neon orange prints.

(L-R) Oliver Kennedy, Will Vadasz, Lara Copeland, Simon Rankin, Mikey D'amico, Aan Ko. Credit Aan Ko

Will, Mikey and Elena are recent graduates and part of the studio collective. They are all looking forward to working within Melbourne Design Week (MDW), not just as students or alumni, but as named designers in the workshops and following exhibition.

“It is super exciting, and a really cool concept,” said Will.

“You don’t come across opportunities like this often, and it is awesome to be able to say I’ve worked with Melbourne Design Week, and NGV at this point in my life.”

Will sits against a white wall and is smiling at the camera.

Will at the Transmedia Relay gallery installation. Credit Aan Ko

Mikey smiles while holding screen printing tools.

Mikey screen printing at the O Week activation in Brunswick. Credit Aan Ko

Mikey and Will have been a part of the studio since the beginning, working with Simon and the small handful of students who helped build the studio’s early identity.

“We got the brand set up, we created the logos, we set up social media and we learnt to screen print, which was the first time doing it for most of us and we learnt enough to be able to teach others how to do it themselves,” Mikey said.

“Pavement print Studio was a chance to try something I hadn’t done before, to learn some new skills and be creative in a different way,” said Elena, who credits the studio for igniting her passion for collaboration.

Two photos of Elena up a ladder, installing artwork in the gallery.

Elena installing prints at the at the Transmedia Relay gallery installation. Credit Aan Ko

Though their studies are now complete Elena, Will and Mikey all still make the time to be involved with the studio to stay connected with an art making community and support their peers.

“It has been the best opportunity to meet more than just the people who were in my course. I’ve been able to work with others who were in different years of study and work with teachers at a peer level,” said Elena.

“I am also connecting with people who are in the same position I was not too long ago, and it is such a cool way to stay involved in the community and bridge that gap between education and employment.”

Making in Public

The studio's approach sits at the intersection of traditional craft and contemporary design practice.

Students work with multiple screen printing and screen-making techniques alongside digital fabrication technologies, laser cutting stencils from reclaimed paper, layering water-based Permaset Aqua inks, and building modular grid systems that allow individual designs to interact and overprint in unexpected ways.

“It’s such a fun experience to be making with other people, and to experiment with how things come out” said Mikey.

“We were doing a print not too long ago and we swapped the colours around during different sessions, just to see how it ended up, and it was just great to be able to experiment.”

A large group on onlookers admire the studio's work in the gallery space.

Gallery visitors look at the wall of prints produced by the studio as a part of their Transmedia Relay exhibition. Credit Aan Ko.

Their results are deliberately open-ended. At their debut activation at the City North Cross-Cultural Festival on Cardigan Street in Carlton, the studio engaged more than 150 participants across three days, producing a 3mx10m wall installation built from the collective contributions of participants.

‘It can be very past paced, and quite intense, but it has defiantly taught me how to work in new environments and to teach others how to print,” Will said.

Melbourne Design Week 2026

Pavement Print Studio brings that same logic to the Brunswick Design District as part of MDW 2026, one of Australia's most significant annual design festivals.

Their program, Open Edition, runs across three days with workshops at MPavilion RMIT Brunswick from 15 to 17 May, before a flagship exhibition and opening event at Balam Balam Place from 20 to 24 May.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Brunswick Design District (BDD), supported through a partnership between RMIT University, Merri-bek City Council and Creative Victoria.

Pavement Print Studio is one of twelve Merri-Bek studios working under ‘MDW BDD Open Studios: Design Behind Closed Doors’, an initiative showcasing local makers and encouraging participation in celebration of local creativity, craftsmanship, and innovation.

The concept extends the studio's core proposition. Participants work alongside the student designers, contribute a design to the collective work, and leave with their own print.

These individual contributions layer into a single large-scale artwork, to be installed at Balam Balam Place and unveiled at a public opening on 20 May, where every named co-author is invited back to see what they built together.

Pavement Print Studio thank the continued support of their industry partners who make their work possible; Brunswick Design District, RMIT Vocational Education, RMIT Creative, RMIT Vocational Education Graphic Design, Permaset, Ball & Doggett, Gildan Brands Australia, Heaps Normal.

students sit in a group, coffee and energy drinks around them as they draw ideas for MDW.

Sneak peeks of the upcoming ‘Open Edition’ for Melbourne Design Week 2026. Credit Aan Ko

Story: Jas M

Art, Design and Culture

14 May 2026

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Art, Design and Culture

14 May 2026

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