2025 Hot New Things: Hayden Middleton, Auckland University of Technology

Design Assembly profiles a selection of the top graduates from the best Art and Design Schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. We welcome these talented emerging professionals to our industry, learn about their passions, final projects, developing creative confidence and ambitions for the future.

Hayden Middleton has graduated with a Bachelor of Communication Design from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and is the 2025 recipient of the AUT Design Design Assembly Award for Culture and Community, Annually, awarded to a final-year communication design student and their capstone project the recipient receives:

A mentoring session with Design Assembly founder and director, Louise Kellerman
An year of free passes to Design Assembly events and workshops
A complimentary Design Assembly membership for one year

Congratulations, Hayden!

Tell us a bit about yourself

Kia ora! My name is Hayden, I’m a lover of the arts, design, photography, and all things creative. I was born and raised in East Auckland and have lived in Aotearoa New Zealand all my life. My family is full of creatives and it took me a while to find my niche. I mixed my love of the digital world and drawing by using to learn the ins and outs of digital illustration. This was the beginning of my design journey.

What was the focus of your graduating project?

My graduating project, Dreamed Scapes, focused on dreams and the images our unconscious minds create. This was an interest that started when I was younger, and I would write down my dreams from each night as a way to try and be able to be aware when I was dreaming, a phenomenon known as ‘lucid dreaming.’ I never was able to actually lucid dream, but as a result of my dream recordings, my dreams became extremely vivid, and I found what my brain would conjure up fascinating.

For this project, I read a lot of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and learnt about the kinds of images, scenes, and themes within dreams can tell us about our subconscious. I looked at dreams as a form of communication that we should take note of. I hoped by visually representing dreams in collage, I could inspire people to log or visualise their own dreams.

Why did you choose to study Bachelor of Communication Design at AUT?

I remember feeling very unsure about what I wanted to do for a long time, and it wasn’t until a day at high school where representatives from AUT came to talk about their programmes that it became clear to me. There was something about the communication design programme talk that really excited me about becoming a designer. It felt like the perfect mix of both art and english, which were my two favourite subjects in school. I also remember seeing the kinds of projects and work that had come out of the AUT design course and I appreciated that grades were given based off of assignments rather than written exams. I knew I would leave AUT with a full portfolio, which would set me up for the future.

What did you enjoy most about the programme?

I didn’t expect to be printing so much when I first started the course, and at first using the printer was completely foreign to me and brought a lot of stress—why do printers never work when you most need them to!? But over time I really began to appreciate the physical crafting aspects of design and test printing to see my design in situ became an incredibly important part of my personal design process. By the end of the course, printing was one of my favourite things to do. I fell in love with physical design outcomes such as posters, cards, and especially publications. Other than figuring out my love of printing, I just loved the people in my course; it was amazing chance to become friends with a lot of like-minded creative peers.

What was your biggest challenge while studying?

We were always encouraged to try out lots of different ways to solve a design problem, or question, before focusing in on the final idea. I found it hard to find the balance between trying out too many iterations or becoming too quickly attached to one design solution without testing any others. It is still something I’m working to get better at since sometimes I can come into a design project with a really strong idea in my mind, but it’s the designs where there was a range of different iterations and experimentation that often come out the best. With my final capstone project, I believe I was finally finding that sweet spot of continuously evolving and improving on a design idea while still staying on track.

Who (or what) inspired you to pick design as a career path?

Other than the enthusiastic representatives for the design course that came to my high school, my family was very supportive about me pursuing something I was really passionate about. With the help of this encouraging environment, a lot of the push towards design as a career path was self-driven. Once I have my mind set on something, I intend to see it through, and getting into a graphic design course became a goal that really helped push me through the end of high school.

Who is your favourite designer?

It is always really hard to narrow down just a couple favourites but at the moment I love the work of Paul Soulellis and his low fidelity typographic focused zines and newsletters, Jonathan Castro Alejos and his grunge abstract visuals and modern design and New Zealand designer Catherine Griffiths with her bold contemporary design style. These three have influenced a lot of my designs through my time at university, and I still look to them now for inspiration.

What is next for you?

I’m always looking to learn more about design and design processes, so wherever I end up working, whether it be a design studio or printing company, I want to make sure they have the kind of culture that will keep me on my toes with new projects, techniques, and design lessons. Other than hunting for this perfect landing place, I have some plans for a few personal projects with the intention of furthering my digital illustration skills and exploring at-home linocut and screen printing approaches.

Where can we see more of your work?

My portfolio website, LinkedIn and Insta, or email me!

Find out more about tertiary study options across Aotearoa New Zealand on our Design Schools page.

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