Natalie Cheung
If you notice your peers walking around campus in fresh, custom apparel next week, you鈥檙e looking at the work of Natalie Cheung. A current student in Cohort 18.0, Natalie recently won the program's competitive MDM T-shirt Design Contest. The win arrives at the perfect time; after hearing from students who expressed a lack of brand or cohesive identity on campus, the contest aimed to give the cohort a visual anchor to rally around. See the winning graphic below!
When designing the shirt, Natalie wanted to reflect the wildly diverse fields that intersect inside the program. Her layout centers on a visual representation of the MDM spirit, capturing how students from completely different backgrounds find their fields and workflows intersecting.
"I think at first I was kind of surprised," Natalie reflects on her win. "But I was pretty confident. I drew it with the intention of knowing that there are so many people with different backgrounds that I've met through this program, and I wanted to reflect all these different aspects since there's so much that goes on within digital media."
Since Natalie's goal was to represent as many digital technologies and digital media applications as possible to reflect the transdisciplinary skills of the students, she wanted to weave a variety of specific icons into the layout. To achieve this look while keeping the presentation perfectly balanced, she decided to blend traditional hand-drawing with digital tools.
Her process started the old-school way, putting physical pencil to paper to sketch out a couple of rough ideas and loose doodles. From there, she transitioned into a digital version using Procreate to draw the designs on her iPad. The creation involved a lot of trial and error. Natalie spent time playing around with the placement and thickness of individual items, like adjusting the sizes of televisions or laptops, and taking a step back to see if it looked good and felt balanced. She also gathered feedback from friends and colleagues during the process to ensure the final layout was perfectly balanced.
Natalie鈥檚 unique approach to space and visuals is rooted in her undergraduate studies. Before joining Cohort 18.0, she earned a Bachelor of Architectural Science from 91滴滴, where she specialized in graphic design, architectural drafting, and 3D modeling. Throughout her studies, she became increasingly intrigued by how themed environments, digital storytelling, and immersive technology overlap.
Her interest in the field was heavily accelerated a couple of years ago through the Thrill Design Competition at Universal Studios in Orlando, run by 91滴滴鈥檚 professor, Dr. Woodcock. Natalie participated as a theme park fan and got to do it again this past fall. Beyond the competition itself, Dr. Woodcock has been super helpful with the networking aspect, connecting Natalie with people here in Canada who do similar work in design.
These experiences, alongside a study abroad program and working at theme parks and concert venues, gave her a strong appreciation for how immersive environments shape meaningful audience experiences. She envisions a career designing immersive experiences that live at the edge of architecture and digital media. Projects that invite people to see spaces not just as something they move through, but as structures that tell stories and transform their relationship with the built environment.
The desire to explore that line between physical and digital spaces is what ultimately drew her to the industry partnership project, Flow State. For this project, POV in partnership with Immersive International and TSNI presented a bold exhibit interweaving immersive media with storytelling. The one-night installation marked the official launch of POV & TSNI's latest research on Indigenous talent in Toronto's creative industries.
Now that the project is completed and the immersive experience has wrapped up, Natalie's group is currently in the final phase of their master's path: writing their Major Research Paper (MRP) on the experience.
Since diving into the program, Natalie has actively embraced this cross-disciplinary teamwork. For her, shifting into an environment with so many contrasting viewpoints was an eye-opening transition compared to her past academic background. "It's been really nice to hear different opinions," she explains. "It's good when someone disagrees with you because then you can kind of see it from a different angle, and problem solve in a different way."
As graduation approaches, Natalie is excited to take her passion for themed environments straight into the professional entertainment industry. Her absolute dream project is to design highly immersive themed environments and story-driven spaces for theme park guests to walk through and experience around the world.
The program has helped solidify that this path is a completely viable professional reality for her, bridging the gap between what she loved and what she could actually do. "Going to architecture school... I wasn't sure if this was a thing that people did, in terms of storytelling through brand design and creating themed environments," she explains. "I think doing the industry partnership and some of the classes has helped me decide that I do want to create immersive and themed experiences for people."
For anyone thinking about applying to the program, Natalie鈥檚 advice is simple: "The program is designed for you to learn from your peers," she says. "Lean into your unique creative strengths, be open to feedback, and embrace the learning curve."
When asked to describe her MDM experience so far in three words, Natalie chooses: 鈥淐reative. Experiential. Collaboration.鈥�
Connect with Natalie: |
