A thriving community arts initiative, What I Did Last Week, started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. 

The City of Greater Bendigo’s unique arts program was developed to create an online exhibition to share work and encourage artmaking for professional and amateur artists. What I Did Last Week began on March 23, 2020, when artists were invited to submit one image representing what they had been doing in lockdown the previous week. Contributing artists covered a range of media, including traditional visual art forms: drawing, painting, and photography, as well as sculpture, craftwork, poetry, and music.

As the program developed, it became a visual record of the times, reflecting the experiences of the artists and their communities. For this reason, and as an acknowledgement of the artists’ works, it was decided to produce two hard copy volumes for the work submitted.

I was invited to design the first two volumes showcasing the artwork submitted in 2020. The process began with a thorough understanding of the content and purpose of the book. This included identifying the target audience and evaluating the best design approach to achieve the desired outcome.

As the book designer for this beautiful project, I created a full-colour cover design, including front, back and spine. I produced a print-ready file that met the printing requirements, ensuring that the file was formatted correctly, all images were high-resolution, and the colours were accurate. This process included choosing the best paper stocks and binding methods. McPhersons, Victoria printed Volume One and Two.

Design and layout full-colour internal pages. Organised CiP data, ISBN and Barcode. Prepress production. Volume One: 234x168mm. 84 pages. Volume Two: 234x168mm. 80 pages.

You can view all the submitted artwork at bendigoregion.com.au/arts-culture-theatres/what-i-did-last-week-archive