Ruby Healey

I’m a multidisciplinary designer and sometimes photographer based in Naarm/Melbourne. I work from Idle Time, a studio space that I co-founded and manage. My practice sits at the intersection of communication design and image making with a focus on documenting, interpreting and making sense of our world. I’m interested in collective practice, co-design and independent publishing.

I currently work in a freelance capacity and at social impact organisation, YLab. Get in touch if you’d like to collaborate on a project.

I acknowledge the Custodians of the land in which I live and work, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin nation. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Companion Pieces

Publication design and curation, 2019.

Companion Pieces is an 132pp archive of ‘affective objects’ collected from graduating students of RMIT Communication Design in 2019.

“An affective object may be defined as any physical object which has the ability to sense emotional data from a person, map that information to an abstract form of expression and communicate that information expressively, either back to the subject herself or to another person.”

Jocelyn Scheirer and Rosalind W. Picard
Mit Media Laboratory Perceptual Computing Section Technical Report No. 524
These affective objects have been kept by each individual, whether it be subconsciously or for sentimental reasons, during throughout the course of their degree. They are companion pieces, small constants, a cosy nook, talismans, all objects to be handled with care.

The items were exhibited at the Handle With Care grad show while the publication was gifted to students and sold to guests.