2025-2026
Creative Practices of Cosmakers
Coscreaticon is a card-based tool and game designed to support cosplay-makers in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia (AoNZAU). It emerged from research I conducted into as part of my Master of UX Design from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.
The BRIEF
How do cosmakers in Aotearoa and Australia experience cosmaking, and how might a design tool help?
The Approach
I took a three-phase approach to my research and design process, leveraging human-centred design methods
I moved through four key research activities: a literature review to understand the global landscape, semi-structured interviews to hear directly from cosmakers, design workshops to validate insights and explore directions collaboratively, and usability testing to refine the design concept iteratively.
The REFRAME
How might we support cosmaking as a creative practice - not just a process?
Going into this research, the working assumption - backed by literature and early conversations - was that a core challenge for cosmakers in AoNZAU was access. Access to materials, tools, knowledge, and community was limited. Given our geographic distance from the most prominent cosplay stages in the world, that made sense. But my interviews helped me uncover some nuance.
What emerged was a tension within AoNZAU's cosmaking culture itself - between creative freedom and creative obligation. Cosmaking approaches and techniques often fall into a hierarchy, where techniques are often seen as a scale of progression rather than a spectrum of creativity. This, inadvertently, leads cosmakers to experience a tension around the "right" way to make their costumes. Cosmakers spoke about their skill gaps, creative stagnation, decision paralysis, and a quiet but persistent pressure to create their costumes in certain ways that were considered "advanced", "correct", or "expected".
This made me realise that beneath the problem of access was a deeper problem around how creativity was understood, experienced, and negotiated. That meant that I couldn't just design for cosmakers' creative process - I had to design for their creative practice. That meant designing for mindsets and community as much as techniques and information sharing.
The Solution
I designed Coscreaticon, which is a card-based tool and game for cosmakers.
Coscreaticon offers cosmakers different ways to think about, do, and celebrate their creativity. The deck includes four card types - Spark, Method, Reflection, and Story - and can be used alone or together, as a prompt or a game.
The deck is supported by a digital platform where cosmakers can create and contribute their own cards - placing the growth and direction of Coscreaticon into the hands of the community. Creativity is expansive and ever-growing; the cards should be too.
The Impact
A tangible tool and game that shifted perspectives, invited conversation, and reignited a sense of play within cosplay
Coscreaticon is currently in development and ready for more testing - the website is now live and accepting EOIs.
However, my mid fidelity prototype was tested with a small group of cosmakers during my research. Aside from the insights I gathered through usability testing, I also noticed something interesting - all my sessions ran over time. This wasn't because of poor time-keeping, but instead it was because participants were having too much fun to stop. The cards invited a real sense of play, collaborative ideation, general goofiness and assumption testing, and creative thinking. Although Coscreaticon is still needing refinement, my hope is that those interactions demonstrated a glimpse into the impact that this concept could have in the broader community.
Outside of my research, Coscreaticon will be exhibited at a School of Design Innovation's Postgraduate Exhibition in August 2026, where a physical print run of the cards will be on display and available for public interaction. A link to the published thesis will be available shortly in the coming months.
AWARDS
I was awarded the inaugural MUX Research Scholarship to support this work, becoming the first recipient in the programme's history.
