Civic Christmas Displays: Wanneroo & Joondalup
Designed the streetscape layout for two councils' Christmas lighting, curated the display range, sourced and managed the European designers and suppliers, and scoped the full installation before handoff. The Wanneroo displays are permanently installed and publicly visible.
The one civic piece with no NDA on it
For two Perth councils, the City of Wanneroo and the City of Joondalup, I planned the Christmas lighting scheme end to end: the streetscape layout, the choice of displays, the suppliers who built them, and the installation plan. The Wanneroo displays are permanently installed in the town centre and civic grounds and can be seen every year.
What the job was
- The streetscape plan. I designed where the lighting went: which figures sat in which garden beds, verges, forecourts and pole runs, how they read as a set across the civic realm, and how the scheme scaled year on year.
- Curating the range. I selected the displays themselves. The individual figure designs, the wireframe animals, the oversized gift boxes, the archways, came from specialist Christmas-display designers and workshops in Europe. I sourced those designers and suppliers and managed the relationship, working with them to land on the right pieces for each site.
- Scoping the installation. I planned and specified everything needed to get the displays into the ground: fixings and mounting details, ballast, power, traffic management, and the install sequence, all packaged and handed to The Factory’s production manager for implementation. That handoff was the standard workflow.
- Tenders. I prepared the tender and proposal packages that won both pieces of work, pairing the scheme visuals with the estimate and the delivery plan.
- Import and freight. I managed the international logistics to get the finished displays from Europe to Perth on schedule for the season.
Why it’s here
Most of my physical work sits behind a client sign-off or an NDA. This does not: it is permanently installed, publicly visible, and photographable by anyone. It also shows the shape of the role in one project, the same shape that recurs throughout my work: not the person who draws the object, but the person who plans where it goes, sources who makes it, works out how it gets built and installed, and holds the whole thing to a fixed deadline.
Hard Skills
Streetscape and placement planning, installation drafting (fixings, mounting, ballast), traffic-management planning, LED and lighting specification, estimating, tender and proposal authoring, international supplier sourcing, freight and logistics coordination
Soft Skills
Council stakeholder management, commercial proposal writing, overseas supplier and designer coordination, delivery scheduling to a fixed seasonal deadline
