New Gold Mountain
Role Graphic Designer
Production Designer Paddy Reardon
RELEASED SBS, 2022
Scope Graphic props, illustration, environmental signage, poster design, photo editing, photo compositing.
Set during the 1850s Victorian gold rush, New Gold Mountain is a period drama exploring the tense intersection of Chinese miners, European settlers, and First Nations people. My work on the series focused on creating an immersive, historically accurate visual world across four episodes.
The graphic scope required deep research into 19th-century typography, Chinese goldfields ephemera, and traditional manufacturing techniques. I designed and fabricated period-correct hero props, forged legal and personal documents, designed mock-ups of environmental signage for the painting department, and created custom hand-drawn illustrations that grounded the narrative in real-world history.
NOT Wanted
The hero reward poster featured a pair of outlaw brothers. I illustrated their portraits in pencil over their costume fitting photos, but they didn't look mean enough. Because we were filming under strict COVID protocols, face-to-face interaction with the cast was restricted, leaving me to imagine my own facial expressions for them.
After all the approvals and delivering the final prints to set, an onset cast change on the day of shooting meant one brother was cut. I had to instantly pivot, re-compose the artwork, and execute a fast turnaround redesign for a single-character poster before the camera rolled.
Poster designs and recreations of actual historical notices for Chinese camp.
Lecture posters for doctor's office set.
Bending the Rules of Press Technology
A major plot point in New Gold Mountain follows Belle, who inherits her late husband's print shop, meaning newspaper props are featured heavily. The script called for cover pages with dramatic headlines and hero editorial illustrations. However, as any print enthusiast will tell you, print-press technology in 1857 didn't work that way. At the time, newspapers were constrained by rigid vertical metal columns; multi-column headlines and large front-page story illustrations didn't become common until the late 19th century.
Sometimes, storytelling demands taking deliberate liberties with historical accuracy. In 1857, wood-engraved illustrations were costly and time-consuming, usually reserved for small, repeated commercial ad graphics rather than daily breaking news. Nonetheless, narrative impact won out over historical accuracy: I hand-illustrated a custom portrait of our hero for the front page of our fictional paper, The Evening Examiner, bending 1850s press constraints to serve the drama on screen.
Poster designs and illustration.
Poster design and illustration.
