Design Work

This week on Design Work Kate chats with Katie Levy and Mike McVicar, founders of Gander. Based out of their Brooklyn studio, Gander creates brands and experiences with soul and substance. Katie and Mike cut their teeth in studios like Red Antler and with brands like Kiehl's before setting out on their own. In this interview Katie and Mike chat about the unlikely kinship between Florida and New York, what starting a studio was really like and how to make cool work for cool people. Plus we get the exclusive on their next studio opening on Mars.

This week on Design Work, Kate sits down with Sam Stuchbury founder and Creative Director of Motion Sickness. Motion Sickness is an independent creative agency based in Auckland, producing video and social content for brands like Les Mills, Stolen Rum and Icebreaker.

This week on Design Work we have Alec Dudson, founder of Intern Magazine and lecturer at Leeds Arts University. Alec started Intern as an independent publication in 2013 to create an open, frank discussion about the state of the creative industry and young people's place in it. Intern magazine prides itself on paying all of its contributors rather than just promising exposure, a policy which can be rare for up and coming creatives.

This week on Design Work I'm chatting with Marc O'Brien, co-founder of The Determined — a design studio that exclusively works with organizations and companies that are aiming to reverse climate change.

This week I’m chatting with Ethan Parry, a UX Researcher and Service Designer based in Barcelona. With a background in communications, Ethan made the jump in UX and Service Design. He has worked and taught workshops from Silicon Valley to Colombia, and now Barcelona.

This week Kate chats with independent UX and Product Designer, Jenny Shen. Jenny works remotely in Amsterdam and has worked with companies like IBM, Crate & Barrel and TravelBird. She also runs the Ladies that UX Amsterdam community, mentors other designers and speaks at conferences. In this episode Jenny fills us in on what it’s like to be a remote designer, her favourite countries to work from, running a community, creating a mentor program and digital douchebags.

This week on Design Work I chat with Helen V. Holmes, designer and founder of Your Grandma Lied Studio. Helen lives in New York City and has worked with big brands like Firefox and Capital One and now has started Your Grandma Lied as a full service studio that uses a collective model. In this episode Helen talks about how learning three languages helped her learn code, what it takes to build a collective-style studio and putting to bed the age old question of should designers code.

In this episode I catch up with Natasha Vermeulen, a freelance designer and illustrator based in Auckland, New Zealand. She has worked at a number of award-winning design studios in New Zealand as well as building her own independent practice, From the Mill — a direct translation of her last name. In this episode Nat chats about how she’s learnt to run a successful freelance design practice, getting comfortable with contracts and how going to gigs by yourself can make you a better freelancer.

This week I speak to Deroy Peraza, co-founder of Hyperakt, a social impact studio based in Brooklyn. Hyperakt has worked with everyone from Spotify to Amnesty International all through the lens of creating meaningful design for the common good. Deroy fills us in on what it means to be a social impact agency, the influence of baseball cards on his design career and what makes a good side project.

This week I speak to Alisa Olinova, Design Director of verynice, a design consultancy based in LA that gives away half of their time to great causes. Alisa chats to us about her journey from intern to design director at verynice, running a Women’s Design Salon event series, logos as tattoos and her favourite olympic sport.