Our Design Courses
Notable Alumni
Industry-Standard Tech and Software
From day one you’ll attend classes set up in studio-like environments and have access to a range of state of the art equipment and software. All JMC Design students receive a full Adobe Creative Cloud licence allowing for use on their personal computer.
Global Industry Connections
Our Lecturers
Dr Melissa Silk
With over thirty years of creative practice, Melissa collaborates with many thinkers and makers to design experiences that embed the Arts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEAM). Melissa is co-director of STEAMpop.zone while also engaged in research contributing to learning ecologies spanning creative intelligence and innovation, transdisciplinary education, and designing for preferred futures. Melissa enjoys being part of a bold community of multipotentialities intent on developing and sharing unique learning experiences for everybody.
Awards: Beth Southwell Award for Education Research
Dr Melissa Silk
With over thirty years of creative practice, Melissa collaborates with many thinkers and makers to design experiences that embed the Arts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEAM). Melissa is co-director of STEAMpop.zone while also engaged in research contributing to learning ecologies spanning creative intelligence and innovation, transdisciplinary education, and designing for preferred futures. Melissa enjoys being part of a bold community of multipotentialities intent on developing and sharing unique learning experiences for everybody.
Awards: Beth Southwell Award for Education Research
Tim McEwen
Tim McEwen draws on his broad experience in feature film storyboards and concept art (Happy Feet Two, Blinky Bill, Wolf Creek 2), as well as comic books, illustration, and cartooning. He's been published professionally since he was 17, has featured in 22 exhibitions domestically and internationally, and has been nominated and shortlisted many times for numerous awards, including three times for Best Comic Book Artist in the Australian Cartoonists’ Association's prestigious Stanley Awards. In 2018 he received the Platinum Ledger Award for contributions to the Australian comics scene.
He's been the director of the Comics Art Awards of Australia, a committee member for the Australian Cartoonists' Association, founding art director of Supanova Pop Culture Expo, as well as being a featured guest at numerous conventions, and an expert speaker at numerous events. He's also an art director and graphic designer with 30+ years of experience.
Tim has lectured at JMC in Sydney for nine years, and has previously lectured at the University of Western Sydney. He continues to work in his chosen professions, illustrating books, providing storyboards, and working on his internationally distributed, award-winning comic series ‘Greener Pastures’.
Tim McEwen
Tim McEwen draws on his broad experience in feature film storyboards and concept art (Happy Feet Two, Blinky Bill, Wolf Creek 2), as well as comic books, illustration, and cartooning. He's been published professionally since he was 17, has featured in 22 exhibitions domestically and internationally, and has been nominated and shortlisted many times for numerous awards, including three times for Best Comic Book Artist in the Australian Cartoonists’ Association's prestigious Stanley Awards. In 2018 he received the Platinum Ledger Award for contributions to the Australian comics scene.
He's been the director of the Comics Art Awards of Australia, a committee member for the Australian Cartoonists' Association, founding art director of Supanova Pop Culture Expo, as well as being a featured guest at numerous conventions, and an expert speaker at numerous events. He's also an art director and graphic designer with 30+ years of experience.
Tim has lectured at JMC in Sydney for nine years, and has previously lectured at the University of Western Sydney. He continues to work in his chosen professions, illustrating books, providing storyboards, and working on his internationally distributed, award-winning comic series ‘Greener Pastures’.
Andrew Barnum
Andrew Barnum is a Designer, Educator and Artist and continues to work on projects and in contexts that synthesise his experience and inspiration as a creative practitioner. In Design he is the chief creative officer of Social Design Action consultancy Peopleness, which is human-centered design focused. In education he is a PhD candidate at UTS researching the potential dislocation between Australian song, cultural identity and place in the digital age, and is course author and lecturer in the Bachelor of Design (Digital Design) at JMC Academy in Sydney.
As an artist his passion is songwriting and painting with independent releases on iTunes and Spotify as Andrew Barnum and Vitabeats, with a new project under the moniker of Memory Collective. His most recent paintings are a series of colour field investigations in Australian ‘colours in common.’
Andrew Barnum
Andrew Barnum is a Designer, Educator and Artist and continues to work on projects and in contexts that synthesise his experience and inspiration as a creative practitioner. In Design he is the chief creative officer of Social Design Action consultancy Peopleness, which is human-centered design focused. In education he is a PhD candidate at UTS researching the potential dislocation between Australian song, cultural identity and place in the digital age, and is course author and lecturer in the Bachelor of Design (Digital Design) at JMC Academy in Sydney.
As an artist his passion is songwriting and painting with independent releases on iTunes and Spotify as Andrew Barnum and Vitabeats, with a new project under the moniker of Memory Collective. His most recent paintings are a series of colour field investigations in Australian ‘colours in common.’
You will need to bring the following to your course:
- Laptop: Macbook Pro or similarly powered
- Windows laptop, running latest OS
- Device: Smartphone or Tablet
- Journal: A5 size Blank pages
- Pen: Felt-tip 0.3-0.5
- Pencils: HB-2B, rulers and erasers
JMC will supply you with Adobe Creative Cloud software
At application, we are most keen to learn about your passion and reasons for wanting to study design. In addition to that, we ask that you answer the following two questions prior to coming in for the interview:
- Show us your best piece of work
What’s something you’ve created that you’re really proud of? It can be any of the following:
- An image (a photography piece, an illustration or a painting)
- A project (an idea, a story, a film critique, a blog, etc…)
- A product (a website, an animation, a poster, presentation, etc…)
Write a small paragraph explaining your choices and rationale behind it. Show us your rigor and initiative. Give us an insight into your creative approach, your creativity and the resulting output.
- Tell us your thoughts
- Choose a brand that you like and think is successful; write a short paragraph reflecting on why you like it and the reasons behind its success.
- Choose a brand that you dislike or has not been doing well; write a short paragraph reflecting on what the issues are and how they might improve.
Show us the way you see the world around you, your standard of what makes a design good or bad and an insight into your thought process.
No. We equip you with digital tools that allow you to create high-functioning prototypes without coding.
This course is very hands on, and you will tackle real world creative projects. However, having a foundational understanding of design theory is still vitally important. There is approximately a 25% (theory) to 75% (practice) balance.
No. We assess your work as would happen in the workplace via proposal documents and reports, presentations and demonstrations.
As with any design you will need to communicate ideas via drawing and sketching. We believe anyone can learn how to think visually, and we teach sketching techniques right from the beginning. So, if you are open to making marks and learning how to do it well, that’s all you need to start!
