Designed to reinforce the institution's implementation of best-practice cultural safety and respect for First Nations people, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University has announced two groundbreaking partnerships with First Nations-led creative agencies Solid Lines and Little Rocket.
Launching from Semester 1 2026, RMIT's College of Business and Law is collaborating with First Nations-owned marketing and creative agency Little Rocket to enhance the Master of Marketing curriculum, allowing students to work on real-world projects which amplify First Nations voices and values.
Little Rocket founder and proud Gurindji man, John Burgess, said the partnership is an opportunity to expand the impact of the organisation.
"These sorts of opportunities accelerate the reconciliation process through enabling a peer-to-peer exchange of modern, strategic and creative applications," Mr Burgess said.
"We are looking forward to working with RMIT to benefit students, our team, and our First Nations supply chain to create positive outcomes."
RMIT Master of Marketing program manager, Dr Daniel Rayne, said Little Rocket's expertise will inspire students to develop news skills and ways of thinking.
"As a First Nations-owned and operated marketing agency, Little Rocket brings invaluable insights that align strongly with the goals of our College and RMIT," Dr Rayne said.
"Their work on innovative, socially driven projects offers our students the opportunity to learn from a high-calibre organisation tackling real social issues through marketing."
The second partnership sees RMIT join with with Australia's first First Nations-led illustration agency, Solid Lines, to produce the five-part podcast series, Solid Yarns.
Each Solid Yarns episode features a conversation between a First Nations artist and their client about a landmark Australian design project, with conversations revealing insights about the creative process, challenges faced by First Nations artists navigating commercial practice, and learnings about how to foster empowering professional relationships.
The podcast features industry partners including Australia Post, HarperCollins and BKK Architects, which have collaborated on projects across branding, publishing, architecture and public art.
Solid Lines co-founder, Emrhan Tjapanangka Sultan, emphasised the importance of early collaboration.
"First Nations artists are too often invited to participate at the end of the creative process, they said.
"Solid Yarns shows what's possible when we are collaborators from the start, with an emphasis on cultural safety and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property."
RMIT says Solid Yarns demonstrates "rare examples" of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property protections which have been explicitly written into design contracts.
RMIT Senior Lecturer in Communication Design, Dr Nicola St John, highlighted the significance of the podcast.
"Design in Australia must reckon with Country and culture. Solid Yarns offers a way to listen and learn directly from First Nations artists about how respectful collaboration can happen in practice," Dr St John said.
Through both partnerships, RMIT says it continues to cultivate an environment where cultural safety is paramount, providing students with practical, culturally-informed learning experiences and fostering stronger connections with First Nations communities.
