Aylie was born in Melbourne, Australia but lived most of her early years in Sydney’s beautiful Northern Beaches.
In 1986 her father came home one day and gave her, her brother and her sister a passport application. She thought she was going on a holiday but to her delight, her family was moving to Japan. She didn’t realise what a profound impact that day would have on the rest of her life.
She completed her high school years at the American School in Japan, Tokyo. At graduation she received the award for ‘Most Talented, class of 89’. Her family then relocated to Hong Kong, where she did a Diploma in Design, the only foreign student at the Swire School of Design.
In 1990 her family moved to Singapore where she stayed for a year developing her artistic eye and a portfolio of work to apply to college in Australia.
In 1991 she moved to Melbourne where she studied a Bachelor (honours) in Fashion Design at RMIT. She was awarded Outstanding Artist in 1991 and 1993 for her body of work in her first and final years. She also won a sponsorship from the International Wool Secretariat which allowed her to enter the Second Year Masters Degree at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London. The year in London was an awesome, stress filled, chaotic time, an experience she would do again in a heartbeat.
In 1995 she returned to Australia and became Collette Dinnigan’s Design assistant. It was an exciting time as Collete was just beginning to show in Paris. She learnt many things about a small fashion design studio but decided to become a freelance fashion designer and illustrator.
For the next couple of years she worked as a portfolio development/illustration and applied design lecturer in the fashion design department at North Sydney’s KVB Visual Communication College. During this time she also designed drop-in collections for Bracewell, BigToe Clothing Company and Victoria Cooper. She also did fashion illustrations for Studio magazine and Nicola Finetti.
Computers were becoming popular and she wanted to make her illustrations come alive so she enrolled in a certificate of multimedia at the SAE College in Surry Hills, Sydney. She took to designing on the computer and when the course was completed she became a designer for popular web development company Spike. Spike's creative, interesting clients enabled her to combine her love of fashion, drawing and design. Among the many projects she designed, the most memorable for her was the award winning sites for Elle magazine and Australian Fashion week. She also designed a very popular surfing game for Ripcurl, Issey Miyake’s Online Archiving tool, micro sites for the MCA and presentations to Levis.
During this time she was asked to go to Japan to help set up the creative team in Spike’s Tokyo office. It was a dream to go back and live in Tokyo after leaving 12 years previously. Aylie loves Japan and always feels like she is coming home when she arrives at Narita.
Her time spent in Asia has had a profound effect on the way she sees the world, designs and illustrates. You may see this in her work, her use of line, colour and composition.
In 2001 she came back to Sydney and continued to work as an Art Director for Spike till the company closed its doors in 2002.
Aylie went on to work at advertising agency Grey 3, with 7 other ex-Spikers. After Grey, she freelanced at Saatchi and Saatchi until her itchy feet got the better of her and she decided to return to England. The return to England was an interesting time and an opportunity arose for her to stay in Berlin for 8 months. Berlin another great city, one she has wonderful memories and would one day love to return.
In 2005 she arrived back in Sydney which is were she is today. In the last couple of years she has worked at News Digital Media as a mobile phone interface designer, designing the mobile web presence for News.com.au, Carsguide and Truelocal. She became Marketing Designer for Truelocal, a position she has just recently left to pursue different avenues within her creative ability.
She is currently working on fashion concepts she has had for the past ten years and is further developing her unique illustration and artistic style, one that she will continue to explore and elaborate on commercially. She hopes to one day illustrate the cover of Vogue Australia and illustrate her own book. She believes illustration has a huge future in Australia’s design and artistic community.
She is highly creative, ambitious, and is never without an inspired vision.
If you would like to contact her regarding work or collaborations, please email her at emailme@ayliemcdowall.com. She would really welcome any feedback or opinions.