A worksheet that became a world

The best briefs are the ones that don't quite know what they want yet.

A while back, Manufacturing Skills Queensland came to me with a worksheet. They'd built a careers course for Year 10 and 11 students with a university partner. Evidence-grounded, carefully made, and not quite landing. Students weren't engaging. They needed something else.

I came back with three concepts. The one they chose was Your Career Factory.

The way it works: I don't just send concepts over. I record a video and walk you through each one as I draw, almost in real time, so you can see them come to life before you've committed to anything. For MSQ, that meant three distinct worlds to consider - each one a different way into the same brief.

The idea was simple. The student becomes the product. They move through the factory in stages: who they are, what they value, what they're skilled at, what they care about. And the factory matches them, eventually, to a career that fits. A working metaphor instead of a worksheet. A world to step into instead of a form to fill in.

It was supposed to be one visual. One page.

Then they fell in love with it. And the one page became the whole course.

“Working with Indi has been transformative for this project. What started as an initial concept for a single piece of work became a vibrant careers world that truly came alive. Students and teachers are now able to explore the concept of ‘career’ through an incredibly fun, engaging and educational set of resources and activities. Indi complemented our vision, and then elevated it entirely.” – Quinn Sunderland, Manufacturing Skills Queensland

The project became:

• 12+ student worksheets

• Educator slide decks

• 10 named characters across the modules

• A suite of animated explainers

I literally took the visuals I'd drawn and learned to make them move. Animation wasn't really part of what I offered before this project. I taught myself, one ChatGPT prompt at a time, with a patience I didn't know AI could give me.

The magic moment, for me, was watching that first visual move. Seeing things start to roll along the conveyor belt for the first time. I felt like we'd unlocked a new world.

But the deeper thing, the bit I keep coming back to, wasn't about manufacturing at all.

It was the realisation that a single visual concept, given room to grow, can carry a whole journey. That the same mechanism could be a different world, for a different client, on a different journey. That one page, properly imagined, isn't a deliverable. It's an architecture. And inside that architecture, students stop absorbing information and start moving through something. Relevance, meaning, joy. Instead of evidence, density, dutiful completion.

Career Factory is in classrooms in Queensland this year. The animations are made, the modules are online, the early feedback has been great. It will live in students' hands far longer than the brief that made it. You can check out the resources here.

"What started as an initial concept for a single piece of work became a vibrant careers world that truly came alive. Students and teachers are now able to explore the concept of 'career' through an incredibly fun, engaging and educational set of resources and activities. Indi complemented our vision, and then elevated it entirely."

Georgi Tomlinson — Manufacturing Skills Queensland

None of this would have happened without the partnership at MSQ. They could have asked for a tidier worksheet. Instead they trusted the metaphor enough to let it grow into something neither of us had originally imagined. That kind of trust is rare, and it shaped every part of this work.

It also taught me something I wasn't expecting to learn. That I'm allowed to stretch into the work my projects ask me to do. I went into this thinking I was a concept person, not an illustrator. There were stretches of it where I was scared my style wouldn't be good enough for the volume of world it was asking me to build. I came out the other side doing animation work I didn't know I could do.

Where in your world might one page have a chance to become more?

If you're building a program, a course, or a set of resources and you're wondering what one strong concept could carry - I'd love to find out. Get in touch here.

This piece first went out in the April 2026 issue of When the Dust Settles. If you'd like future letters in your inbox before they appear here, you can subscribe to the list.

What happens when the visual is ready before the room is

Most clients come to me for the live work. They want someone drawing while ideas fly around the room. The energy, the real-time capture, the room watching the story emerge on screen.

But some of the most powerful work I do happens before the event even starts.

For Metro South Health's Long Stay Older Persons Workshop Terry Nash and I worked through a creative brief together - unpacking three complex health strategies, finding the human story inside the policy language, and developing a concept that could hold it all.

Terry said it gave him "a clear outline very early on with regards to options for developing our ideas." That clarity mattered. We weren't guessing at the visual direction on the day - we arrived with a story already taking shape.

We called it "Framing a Better Journey." Each frame held a different moment in an older person's journey through the health system.

The idea: A picture frame as a container for three visions of better aged care. Something familiar, personal, deeply connected to home.

• Early diagnosis of dementia in the community - keeping people connected to life, not the hospital.

• Home First - hospital as a service, not a building.

• The GRACE Model - aged care admission as a life transition, not a system failure.

Together they told a single arc: a smoother, more human journey from community to hospital to home. The connecting thread was this: when people, not systems, are at the centre, everything looks different.

We developed the one-page visual before the workshop. Then on the day I brought it into the room and built on it live - capturing the discussions, adding layers, letting the conversation shape what emerged.

The result was something neither of us could have made alone. The pre-prepared concept gave the room a shared starting point. The live capture gave it a living ending.

Terry described it as watching concepts "knitted together with colour and flow - which has added vibrancy and life to our work."

That's the Concept + Capture model. Not just drawing what happens in the room. Arriving with a story already taking shape, then letting the room finish it.

Interested in combining strategic concept development with live visual storytelling at your next event? I'd love to hear what you're working on.

When a room doesn’t need to make sense (yet)

Most days, I’m expected to make sense of the room but some rooms don’t need to make sense straight away.

I was invited to visually capture a Gen-AI for social science research event, drawing in real time as the keynote speakers Tamika Worrell PhD, Prof. Bronwyn Carlson and Carl Knox circled and tested ideas. There were a mix of universities present, each bringing their own lens into the conversation.

It wasn’t unclear. Just… stretching. Mashing together case studies, showing how First Nations and colonial history is colliding with future technology.

When a room is still forming

People thinking out loud, holding excitement and hesitation in the same breath, trying to name something still unfolding. Some already experimenting. Some questioning what this means for rigour, ethics, truth. Some quietly wondering where they fit in it all.

And underneath it, a shared thread: What helps us, and what harms us? How do we use this new tool well… without losing what makes the work human?

Holding tension, not resolving it

That was the thing I found myself holding. Not just capturing who said what, but listening for where it connected. Where tension wasn’t a problem to solve, but something to include.

I remember one moment in particular. Two perspectives that almost felt at odds. One grounded in rigour and caution. The other pushing for experimentation and possibility. When they were placed side by side, instead of cancelling each other out, they created a fuller picture. You could feel the shift. Nothing had been simplified, but it had landed. 

That’s the moment I’m looking for. When the visual stops being mine and starts belonging to the room.

From swirl to something you can see

By the end, what had been a swirl of ideas became something people could point to. A way to see the landscape they’re stepping into, not just react to it.

This is the work for me. Not just documenting what’s said, but mapping where things connect. Making tension visible. Giving people something they can see themselves inside.

As Evelyn Mirembe from The University of Melbourne shared:

“In an information heavy workshop, having Indi’s visual scribe helped with attention and focus. I’ve circulated the visuals with colleagues who weren’t present but were keen to learn more about the topic. It captured the key takeaways and the points that generated the most discussion among attendees. I think it was great!”

Why this matters now

Shared spaces and shared stories are how we navigate moments like this, when things are still forming and the answers aren’t settled yet.

Standing in the swirl, helping it make sense. That’s why I started Indi Dust 

If you’re working through something complex with your team, and need a way to see it more clearly, I’d love to explore that with you.