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About
I'm a Melbourne-based creative working across illustration, branding and theatre design.
My background is in set and costume design, having trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and working professionally in theatre for over a decade. That foundation has taught me how clothing, space and objects tell stories before words do. The same thinking that builds a theatrical world shapes how I capture fashion in watercolour or translate a brand's atmosphere into identity.
My fascination with visual storytelling has taken me from styling Australia's leading music artists to art directing commercials, from designing runway sets for Melbourne Fashion Week to costuming mainstage productions at the Princess Theatre and Arts Centre Melbourne.
These days, I divide my time between live fashion illustration for weddings and brand events, visual identity for experience-driven brands, and set and costume design for theatre and opera. Across all three, I'm drawn to the stories we tell through what we wear, create, and inhabit.
Learn more about each practice below
Illustration
Rendering the figure with paint and pencil has fascinated me since my costume design training at drama school. I've always relished the process of capturing character and clothing on paper, and fashion illustration lets me focus purely on that pleasure.
I've developed and refined my illustration practice through tutelage at The Drawing Salon and Fitzroy Painting School, and masterclasses with international illustrators Bil Donovan and Scott W Mason. My illustration work now centres on live fashion portraits for weddings and brand events – watercolour painted on-site, capturing guests in what they wore when they wanted to be seen. Each piece becomes a small original artwork: signed, dated, made to keep.
Alongside my live illustration practice, I undertake editorial and commercial commissions, most recently developing a suite of food and drink illustrations for Gin Palace's menus, which taught me that cocktail glasses have as much personality as people (sometimes more).
Illustration
Rendering the figure with paint and pencil has fascinated me since my costume design training at drama school. I've always relished the process of capturing character and clothing on paper, and fashion illustration lets me focus purely on that pleasure.
I've developed and refined my illustration practice through tutelage at The Drawing Salon and Fitzroy Painting School, and masterclasses with international illustrators Bil Donovan and Scott W Mason. My illustration work now centres on live fashion portraits for weddings and brand events – watercolour painted on-site, capturing guests in what they wore when they wanted to be seen. Each piece becomes a small original artwork: signed, dated, made to keep.
Alongside my live illustration practice, I undertake editorial and commercial commissions, most recently developing a suite of food and drink illustrations for Gin Palace's menus, which taught me that cocktail glasses have as much personality as people (sometimes more).
Branding
My background as a theatre designer has taught me that visual language tells stories just as powerfully as words do, and that character is built through what you see, feel and experience. That foundation shapes my work with experience-based brands, where personality, atmosphere and connection define the business itself.
I've spent over a decade working across all facets of brand strategy and marketing, from projects at major agencies for some of Australia's most recognisable brands, through to leading marketing in-house for beloved independent fashion and lifestyle labels. These days, I work independently with small businesses where I can make visible impact at human and community scale – the kind where a considered brand genuinely shifts how people connect with a place or product. The work often spans both brand identity development and collaborative strategy, translating clients' intuitive visions into visual and verbal outcomes that communicate clearly.
Recent clients include Gin Palace, Black Kite Commune, Bar Ampere, Bijou Bottle Store & Bar and Tegan Duncan Clinical Pilates. I also teach branding and digital design at the Victorian College of the Arts, which means I'm practiced at explaining strategy without the jargon.
Branding
My background as a theatre designer has taught me that visual language tells stories just as powerfully as words do, and that character is built through what you see, feel and experience. That foundation shapes my work with experience-based brands, where personality, atmosphere and connection define the business itself.
I've spent over a decade working across all facets of brand strategy and marketing, from projects at major agencies for some of Australia's most recognisable brands, through to leading marketing in-house for beloved independent fashion and lifestyle labels. These days, I work independently with small businesses where I can make visible impact at human and community scale – the kind where a considered brand genuinely shifts how people connect with a place or product. The work often spans both brand identity development and collaborative strategy, translating clients' intuitive visions into visual and verbal outcomes that communicate clearly.
Recent clients include Gin Palace, Black Kite Commune, Bar Ampere, Bijou Bottle Store & Bar and Tegan Duncan Clinical Pilates. I also teach branding and digital design at the Victorian College of the Arts, which means I'm practiced at explaining strategy without the jargon.
Theatre
I've been designing sets and costumes for almost fifteen years, in venues that range from former convents to the Arts Centre Melbourne. Theatre has taught me that space and clothing shape story before anyone speaks a line – a lesson that now informs all my work.
My practice spans independent, small-to-medium and commercial sectors. Recent work includes costumes for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel in concert at the Princess Theatre, featuring Marina Prior and Anna O'Byrne. My costume designs for promiscuous/cities at Theatre Works received an Australian Production Design Guild Award nomination in 2022. Other productions include Lemon Tree on Dreg Street (Dirty Pennies/Theatre Works) and The Mentor starring Amanda Muggleton (Bravo Arts/Theatre Works), The World According To Dinosaurs (Frenzy Theatre, VCE Playlist regional tour), The Lighthouse (BK Opera/Brunswick Mechanics Institute), If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You (Arts House Meat Market), and award-winning productions of The Leenane Trilogy (fortyfivedownstairs/Kin Collective) and Hart (She Said/Melbourne Fringe).
I've completed undergraduate and masters degrees at the Victorian College of the Arts, where I received the Trina Parker Scholarship in Design, and have continued to develop my practice through mentorship with leading designers including Simone Romaniuk, and assisting Kate Davis on Looking For Alibrandi (Malthouse/Belvoir) and YES (The Rabble), as well as Richard Roberts, Christina Smith, Zoë Atkinson and Adam Gardnir across mainstage productions nationally.
Forthcoming work includes Tom Ballard's The Queer Kingdom at Gasworks Arts Park for Midsumma Festival and Fooling In Love: A Modern Bromance (Make A Scene, touring schools in 2026). I'm particularly interested in projects where spatial thinking deepens dramaturgical clarity, whether that's reimagining canonical texts or building worlds for new Australian work.
Theatre
I've been designing sets and costumes for almost fifteen years, in venues that range from former convents to the Arts Centre Melbourne. Theatre has taught me that space and clothing shape story before anyone speaks a line – a lesson that now informs all my work.
My practice spans independent, small-to-medium and commercial sectors. Recent work includes costumes for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel in concert at the Princess Theatre, featuring Marina Prior and Anna O'Byrne. My costume designs for promiscuous/cities at Theatre Works received an Australian Production Design Guild Award nomination in 2022. Other productions include Lemon Tree on Dreg Street (Dirty Pennies/Theatre Works) and The Mentor starring Amanda Muggleton (Bravo Arts/Theatre Works), The World According To Dinosaurs (Frenzy Theatre, VCE Playlist regional tour), The Lighthouse (BK Opera/Brunswick Mechanics Institute), If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You (Arts House Meat Market), and award-winning productions of The Leenane Trilogy (fortyfivedownstairs/Kin Collective) and Hart (She Said/Melbourne Fringe).
I've completed undergraduate and masters degrees at the Victorian College of the Arts, where I received the Trina Parker Scholarship in Design, and have continued to develop my practice through mentorship with leading designers including Simone Romaniuk, and assisting Kate Davis on Looking For Alibrandi (Malthouse/Belvoir) and YES (The Rabble), as well as Richard Roberts, Christina Smith, Zoë Atkinson and Adam Gardnir across mainstage productions nationally.
Forthcoming work includes Tom Ballard's The Queer Kingdom at Gasworks Arts Park for Midsumma Festival and Fooling In Love: A Modern Bromance (Make A Scene, touring schools in 2026). I'm particularly interested in projects where spatial thinking deepens dramaturgical clarity, whether that's reimagining canonical texts or building worlds for new Australian work.
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© Casey Harper-Wood 2025 | Colophon
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which I work. I pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and acknowledge their connection to creativity, culture and storytelling. Sovereignty has never been ceded.
Subscribe to my newsletter
© Casey Harper-Wood 2025 | Colophon
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which I work. I pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and acknowledge their connection to creativity, culture and storytelling. Sovereignty has never been ceded.
Subscribe to my newsletter
© Casey Harper-Wood 2025 | Colophon
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which I work. I pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and acknowledge their connection to creativity, culture and storytelling. Sovereignty has never been ceded.