The Individual Project Design path, including the five design specialties (set, costume, lighting, sound, promotional), the portfolio requirements, and the role of design in theatre

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to know the Design path of the Individual Project: the five specialties, the components of each portfolio, and the way design serves a production's dramatic meaning. Strong answers describe the specialties accurately and engage with design as theatrical practice.

The answer

The format

Specialty

The student chooses one of five design specialties (set, costume, lighting, sound, or promotional) and submits a portfolio for that specialty only. The student cannot submit across multiple specialties.

Chosen play

The portfolio is for a hypothetical production of a chosen play. The student is not producing the play (no actual production); the portfolio describes what the production would look like.

Portfolio submission

A physical (or, increasingly, digital) portfolio is submitted to NESA at the end of the year along with the logbook.

Hypothetical but realisable

The design must be theatrically realisable. A set design that requires the stage to fly twenty actors is not realisable; a set design that uses three doors and a revolve is.

Set design

Components.

• Concept statement. A written paragraph or two describing the world of the production. The genre, the period, the mood, the central visual idea.
• Research. Images, photographs, paintings, period research, locations.
• Ground plans. A scale drawing showing the stage area from above, with every set piece in its position. Standard scales are 1:25 or 1:50. The drawing must use proper drafting conventions (line weight, labels, dimensions).
• Elevations. Drawings showing height. Front and side elevations of major set pieces.
• A scale model. Built at 1:25 from card, foam-board, balsa or other model-making materials. The model shows what the audience will see.
• Model photographs. Photographs of the model from the audience's perspective and from above.
• Rationale. Written explanation linking set design choices to dramatic meaning.

What set design does. Set design creates the physical space the action happens in. Decisions include: the geometry of the playing space (proscenium, thrust, in-the-round), the relationship between actors and audience, the use of levels, the period and style of any furniture, the surfaces (textures, materials), and how the set serves the play's structural needs (multiple locations, transitions, climactic moments).

Costume design

Components.

• Concept statement. Describing the costume world of the production.
• Character analysis. A short paragraph on each character's age, social position, journey, and what costume should communicate.
• Costume renderings. A drawing or digital illustration for each character's costumes, often in watercolour or pencil. One sheet per character (or per scene if the character changes).
• Fabric and material research. Swatches of the actual fabrics intended, with notes on weight, drape and colour.
• Period and contextual research. Images of the period if relevant, references to other productions or films, mood boards.
• Construction notes. For complex costumes, notes on how they would be built.
• Rationale. Written explanation linking costume to character, period and dramatic intention.

What costume design does. Costume tells the audience who the character is, where they sit in the social order, and how they are changing. Decisions include: period, social class, character development across the play, the relationship between costumes (palette, silhouettes, contrasts), and the practical demands (quick changes, blood effects, dance sequences).

Lighting design

Components.

• Concept statement. Describing the lighting world.
• Lighting plot. A scale plan showing the rigging position of each lantern, its type (Fresnel, profile, PAR, LED), its focus point, and its gel (colour filter) number.
• Cue sheet. A list of lighting states across the play, each numbered, with notes on what the state looks like and when it triggers.
• Lantern schedule. A list of every lantern with its specification.
• Sample lighting states. Either photographs (if access to a venue and time to mock up the rig allows), or rendered images, or descriptions.
• Rationale. Written explanation linking lighting to dramatic intention.

What lighting design does. Lighting reveals the action, shapes the mood, directs the audience's eye, and structures time. Decisions include: colour palette, intensity, angle, focus, and the rhythm of cues across the play.

Sound design

Components.

• Concept statement. Describing the sonic world.
• Cue list. Each sound effect, music cue or live sound moment, with timing (where it triggers), source (recording, live performance, foley), and duration.
• Sample recordings. A USB or digital file with the actual or mocked-up audio. Critical for the portfolio: the panel needs to hear the sound, not only read about it.
• Research notes. On any source music or referenced material.
• Technical notes. Speaker placement, mixing, balance.
• Rationale. Written explanation linking sound to dramatic intention.

What sound design does. Sound creates atmosphere, signals location and time, supports emotional content, and structures rhythm. Decisions include: music selection, sound effects, foley (live sound), the use of silence, and the relationship between live sound and recorded sound.

Promotional design

Components.

• Concept statement. Describing the visual identity.
• Poster. A full-scale or scale-reduced poster image.
• Programme cover. The cover artwork.
• Marketing materials. Social media graphics, season brochure entry, web banner.
• Typography and palette. Sample fonts and colours with the rationale.
• Research. Other productions' posters, design influences, visual references.
• Rationale. Written explanation linking visual identity to dramatic content.

What promotional design does. Promotional design tells potential audiences what kind of production this is and persuades them to come. It is the first visual contact between the audience and the play. Decisions include: image choice (photograph, illustration, typographic), tone (serious, comic, dangerous, intimate), and how the design speaks to the target audience.

Choosing a play

The choice of play is the foundation of the design project. Strong choices give the student something to design with:

• A play with strong visual potential. Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cabaret, The Crucible, Mother Courage, Cosi, Things I Know to Be True.
• A play the student knows in depth. A play from the prescribed Australian Drama and Theatre core, or from the Studies in Drama and Theatre elective, gives the student deep textual knowledge as a foundation.
• A play that has been produced recently. Recent productions give the student something to study (and to design against).

Avoid plays so obscure that no production research is available, or so over-designed (large operatic works, technically complex productions) that the portfolio cannot reasonably cover them.

Common pitfalls

Beautiful drawings without a rationale

Markers want to see design choices linked to dramatic meaning. A portfolio that is only renderings without the explanation does not show the student's thinking.

Designs that cannot be built

A set that requires an impossible scenic shift, a costume that defies physics, a lighting plot that uses more lanterns than any school theatre has. Realisability matters.

No supporting model or sample

Set design without a model, sound design without a sample recording, costume design without fabric swatches. The portfolio needs the actual evidence of the design, not just promises.

Late commencement

Design work takes time. Drafting, building, drawing, photographing, mounting in a portfolio: all of these take many weeks. Starting in Term 3 is too late.