Thank you for visiting my portfolio.

I’m Christy Botha, an industrial design student based in New Zealand. My work starts with people, not products. Before I sketch anything, I want to understand how someone actually lives with a problem: how they use their space, what frustrates them, and what they’ve simply learned to work around.

That research-first approach shapes what comes next. I like to prototype early, get hands-on with materials, and see how things actually behave rather than assuming they’ll work. I’m not too precious about early ideas either. If something doesn’t hold up, I’d rather recognise it, change direction, and keep moving. The projects in my portfolio each started with a problem I found through research, observation, or simply paying a bit more attention.

When I’m not designing, I’m usually experimenting with micropropagation, making things, or trying out different materials and processes through craft. I like figuring out how things work by getting stuck into them and seeing what happens.