‘Matter’, 2025 End of Year Showcase – Media Design School at Strayer
The Bachelor of Media Design (BMD) and the Graduate Diploma of Creative Technologies (GCT)
The Bachelor of Media Design programme (BMD) and the Graduate Diploma of Creative Technologies (GCT) proudly announce their End of Year Graduate Exhibition to open on Friday, 14th November 2025. As part of a larger school wide showcase ‘Matter’, the BMD and GCT’s exhibition will feature student work from various disciplines – namely Graphic, Interactive, Motion Design, VFX, 3D and Game Design.
The exhibition title, ‘Matter’, serves as metaphor for transformation, relationship and modality – each reflected in the student’s own journey in their learning, and as essential tools in preparing themselves for industry.
The works in this showcase feature themes that touch on social-mindfulness, collaboration and participatory designing, community-enrichment, the telling and designing for personal narratives, interdisciplinary practice and culture – all driven by a genuine inquisitiveness, one that is underpinned by a positive and holistic mindset. These student-led design projects bring about a need to understand our place in the world, and to improve our human experience.
“It’s fantastic to see such a diverse range of projects come together for this year’s capstone. It’s been a pleasure to watch these students grow into well-informed and collaborative designers, who no doubt have a bright future ahead of them.” – Jim Murray (BMD Programme Director)
“Year three of my Bachelor of Media Design has been incredibly insightful, I’ve sharpened my leadership, built an understanding of Māori design, connected with industry professionals, and sparked my passion for historical research, campaigns, and meaningful storytelling.” – Danielle Gaensicke (BMD Year Three Student)
Students:
Samantha Young
Desago
Desago is a venting and journaling platform that uses AI to guide users through reflection. The chatbot prompts and responds in a way that helps users express their thoughts more freely, bringing clarity and structure to a busy mind. Within the app, users can create journals and add entries that take the form of chat-style conversations, making the experience feel natural and approachable, especially for those who find traditional journaling intimidating. The interface is designed to feel reflective, calm, and non-clinical, creating a safe space for honest expression. After each session, users receive an AI-generated summary highlighting key themes and insights mentioned throughout their reflection. Over time, patterns begin to emerge, and monthly insights are created, allowing users to observe recurring thoughts and track their consistency across months.
Bowdyn Green
Bloomwell
Bloomwell positions design as a form of care. The project began with the question: How can branding help peer support groups feel safer, more approachable, and emotionally supportive to those in need? The research revealed that 47% of such groups lacked branding due to limited resources, lack of design knowledge, or fear of misrepresenting sensitive subjects. Without visual identity, these groups often remain invisible, struggling to gain trust or reach people seeking help. Bloomwell reimagines branding not as a luxury but as an act of empowerment, something that makes connection possible.
Jai Tarn
My Mum Gets This Feeling, A story about Type 1 Diabetes
The aim of this project was to design a resource that parents can use to discuss their own or their child’s Type 1 Diabetes. The key area of exploration is the emotions and physical experience of chronic illness. The design was inspired by a personal experience with a parent being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and directly translated into the design solution reached. While resources exist to explain how T1D works and how it is treated, there is space for more resources that help parents and children think about how this illness can feel, and how it can feel to deal with symptoms that are present so often, with no cure. The final work is a 40 page illustrated work that guides the reader through various feelings, both positive and negative. Placing feelings about chronic illness in the centre of all feelings experienced in day-to-day life. The work both acknowledges the struggle this can present, as well as the necessity to approach these feelings as a part of life.
https://www.instagram.com/jaitarn_art/
Jules Castillon
Palengke
Palengke is a two-minute short film that reconstructs the Filipino wet market through memory. Rooted in autoethnographic reflection, the project was inspired by the voices of Filipinos in the diaspora who, when asked what they missed most about home, spoke not of landmarks, but of the everyday: the food, the community, the sound of life unfolding in the market. Palengke reflects the richness of Filipino culture, one that finds meaning in the everyday and beauty in the noise. The project is both a personal journey and a shared remembrance, honoring a space that holds generations of stories. Through Palengke, the designer invites the Filipino diaspora to reconnect with what feels familiar: the warmth of a place that, even from afar, still feels like home.
https://www.julescastillon.com
Jade Luke-Hurley
Love Your Clothes
The goal of this project involved creating an animated video that delves into textile waste by focusing on what most people consider their go-to clothing item; a hoodie. Currently textile waste is a major issue faced in Aotearoa, with around 180,000 tonnes of textile waste making its way into our landfills every year. Although not as large a contributor as other issues, it is still a major factor in environmental pollution and deserves the attention that similar issues also receive. The aim of the video is to encourage the audience to love their other clothes in the same way that they love their hoodie, encouraging them to make memories with their clothes that they may not wear often.
Dani Gaensicke
Lebensfäden (Threads of Life)
Lebensfäden is a personal project by graphic designer Dani Gaensicke (Gane-sick), based on the lives of her paternal great-grandparents, Fritz and Ruth Gänsicke (Gan-sick-a). Growing up, Dani was always intrigued by her German heritage, but never thought to ask about it until it was too late. Her greatest inspiration was her Opa, a creative through and through, who studied at the Ontario School of Art, interned under Picasso, and worked as a graphic designer, photographer, and sculptor. When Dani was a child, he would draw her small doodles and teach her early photo-editing tricks. His creativity and curiosity inspired Dani’s own path in photography and graphic design. The final exhibition presents eight large panels arranged in a semi-circle, evoking the circle of life. Through documents, photographs, artefacts, and recorded stories, Dani guides audiences through Fritz and Ruth’s journey, illuminating how ordinary Germans survived immense hardship. Her intention is for visitors to leave with empathy, a deeper understanding of untold history, and an urge to explore their own family history that connects the past to the present.
https://www.thearavinaeffect.com
Aston Gregory
The Cost of a Question
The Cost of a Question is an interactive web experience that visualises the hidden environmental impact of Artificial Intelligence. While AI is often celebrated for its innovation and transformative potential, its environmental cost remains largely invisible to everyday users. Training and running large models requires significant amounts of electricity, cooling water, and specialised hardware, leading to substantial carbon emissions and resource strain. The project aims to make these invisible systems visible, transforming data on AI’s energy use into an engaging, visually engaging experience. The target audience is young creatives aged 20–25, people who are both enthusiastic about digital tools and mindful of the social and environmental issues surrounding technology. This group values experimentation, design, and immersive storytelling, making them the ideal audience for a visually driven awareness project.
Loretta Steyn
The Birth of a Dragon
The Birth of a Dragon is a fantasy board game designed to educate an international audience about tales of dragons depicted in real-life legends. There is a lack of easily accessible interactive activities on the market that are designed to share stories of dragons found in global folklore tales. The Birth of a Dragon uses illustrations and a sleek, unified design to create a 40 minute interactive experience that can be enjoyed by anyone with a focus on adults between the ages of 20-35. Drawing from my own fascination with dragons and fantasy, the project’s ultimate goal is to elicit a joyful sense of discovery within players, which will entice further thoughtful research about these topics.
https://www.lorrijade.design
Mehmet Gultekin
Gurbet
Gurbet is a motion piece that explores the feeling of distance between myself and my Turkish family, particularly my BabaAnne. The narrative unfolds through a real recorded phone call with her, which acts as both a bridge to and a reminder of our separation. The work reflects the emotional experience of living away from one’s homeland and loved ones, capturing the tenderness, longing, and quiet ache of belonging to more than one place. It speaks to anyone who has felt the pull of home from afar and the complex emotions that arise from such distance, including love, nostalgia, and subtle grief.
Scarlett Kang
Three Hearts
Three Hearts is an invitation to belong. A spirit without alcohol, but full of ritual, beauty, and strength. The spirit guiding this brand is the Māori Octopus (te wheke). Living in the depths of Aotearoa’s oceans, she can transform herself, changing colour entirely. She symbolises adaptability, transformation, and the quiet power of women navigating change. Te wheke has three hearts that beat in sync. Three Hearts has three flavours, Rising Heart ‘for finding rhythm in the pull of what’s next’. True Heart, ‘for finding truth in the calm between tides and voices’. Warm Heart, for finding warmth in the skin of who we’ve become.’ These spirits are distilled with native New Zealand botanicals, capturing a unique, complex flavour and sense of connection to home.
When:
Friday the 14th November 2025 | 5pm – 9pm
Where:
MDS Campus
10 Madden St.
Tāmaki Makaurau
1010
Ground Floor
Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation & VFX)
Level 1
Bachelor of Media Design (Graphic, UI/UX, Interactive)
Graduate Diploma of Creative Technologies
Foundation Studies
Level 4
Bachelor of Creative Technologies (Game Art)
Bachelor of Software Engineering (Game Programming)
Find more information here.
