Russell Lee



From branding projects to book covers, I am a designer passionate about creating experiences that meet client and user needs through well-considered design choices.

My weird wish is to sing Whitney Houston and hope that the signage in Tokyo’s subways slightly improve.
 Brand ExperienceSingapore  
Vintage Supply
Australian Disability Rights Network Experience DesignImproving Sydney’s Bus Stops The Balinese DeityMotion IllustrationReimagining TimeBook DesignA Very Short Introduction Playground
Experience & Contact

Highlighted Projects  

The Balinese Deity

Exhibition Design


Brief
This individual university brief asked students to create an exhibition based on a chosen Powerhouse artefact
Credits
Russell Lee
Elisa Lee (university studio leader)
What I did
Research
User Testing & Prototyping
Journey Mapping
Experience/Exhibition Design
When
2023 An unexpected twist on a historic personality test to attract younger crowds to visit exhibitions

Challenge
I chose the Balinese cloth painting calendar as the foundation for my exhibition. The goal was to help users understand a specific aspect of the artifact through the exhibit.

Research
Traditionally, the Balinese cloth served as a calendar to mark events like festivals and seasonal changes. It was also used to record birthdays, attributing the characteristics of a Balinese deity to a child based on their birth date — a concept similar to star signs and birthstones.

Approach
I aimed to build on the cloth’s use as an ancient form of personality profiling — much like an early MBTI test. After all, people love learning about their own personalities and traits. I mapped out the user journey, designing a quiz that would determine their personality. An AI would then match their quiz results to the closest corresponding Balinese deity.

Outcome
Through rounds of user testing, feedback, and low-fidelity prototypes, I refined the user journey, guiding users toward a clearer end goal. Watching users experience that “wow, I get it” moment was incredibly satisfying as a designer.

What I would do differently
Next time, I would create mid-fidelity prototypes and better document the user journey and those “wow” moments. This would help capture the project’s process and outcomes — something I’d love to share with friends, family, and potential employers to showcase how meaningful good user experiences can be.


A FINAL MOCKUP of the exhibit experience. On the left, the original Balinese cloth; in the middle, the screen for the quiz and avatar creation; on the right, a digital avatar and the calendar.

INITIAL FIELD WORK: Investigating the object on its materiality, uses, form, to determine what aspect of the cloth I would develop an exhibit around. I was particularly interested in the illustrations of people and animals.
IDEA GENERATION: Reading academic articles on the cloth, I ideated a range of possible aspects to focus on for my exhibition.
SKETCH: An early drawing of the abstract idea that a user would ‘walk through’ layers of the cloth as they learnt more about it through the exhibit.
CONCEPTUALISING: A mood board of ideas, visual and written, of what I want my exhibit to look like.
STORYBOARD: An early iteration of a user journey, particularly focusing on the personality quiz. At the end, a personalised avatar would be created for the user in the Kamasan painting style that the Balinese cloth uses.
FEEDBACK: What did I learn about my user journey storyboard before creating prototypes of my exhibit?
USER TESTING with low-fidelity prototypes – Marvin completing the ‘quiz’ on the ‘screen,’
How I envisoned users interact with the exhibit.