Last term in Week 10, Years 9/10 Graphic Design students made their mark on the walls (and windows) of JPC with the unveiling of a striking mural depicting classic children’s book characters. Everyone from Mem Fox’s Possum Magic to Ted Prior’s Grug can be spotted in the colourful design that now takes pride of place in the JPC Library.

The junior Graphic Design class was tasked with designing a mural for the library based on the 2025 Book Week theme Book an Adventure, with the intention of livening up the space. The week-long project required students to follow the design process: researching potential theme aesthetics, producing thumbnail sketches, making development drawings, digitally iterating their ideas, and conferencing with their clients prior to the final designs being selected.

The winning designers, Year 10 students Aiden Kueter and Luka Spoljaric, combined and adapted their individual designs in Adobe Illustrator to suit the space for the mural — an expanse of 3-by-2-metre glass. Year 9 students Natalie Judson, Ololade Adegboyegun, Ayra Ahmed and Alexander Jones were then tasked with transferring the design from screen to glass. The students reflected on the process:

“Painting the mural for the school library was a very fun and hands-on experience and a real-world graphics project. Our class enjoyed the design process, doing thumbnail sketches and development drawings and coming up with different ideas for the mural. We created our own personal designs in Adobe Illustrator, and only the best design was picked. To decide which mural would go up on the glass, all of the designs were shown to the English faculty leaders, since the mural is located near the English faculty, and their favourite design was chosen.

“The process of painting the mural took an entire day, during which we worked on creating outlines, painting, and adding careful details to ensure it looked seamless in the library space. After the paint dried, Ms Allan and Ms McCallum assisted us by drawing a fine black line to complete and pull everything together.”

This vision could not have been brought to life without the artistic expertise of Year 10 student Hannah Nguyen, the detail-oriented finesse of Technologies Coordinator Miss Chloe McCallum, and the ever-present support of Technologies Assistant Andrew Rose.

Now this incredible design work can be appreciated by all who visit the JPC Library. Get up there quickly before the characters sail away to a new destination — who knows how long they will be hanging around for.

Kat Allan
Technologies classroom teacher