5 (actually 6) creative women that inspire me
Bad ass women doing cool stuff in design.
There's no shortage of creative talent out there, but there are a few women in the industry who I think are extra-special. It's not just their talent as designers that I look up to, it's also the other ways they show up, as advocates for our community, as generous business-owners and as people shaping culture. These women are the ones I find myself looking to when I think about how I want to run my own studio, beyond just what I want to make.
One of them I know personally, the others I've only ever followed from a distance, but each of them has influenced how I think about design, business, and what it actually looks like to build a creative career on your own terms.
01.
Beci Orpin
Beci is a Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist, designer and illustrator with a bold, colourful and playful signature style that's right up my alley. She's worked across everything from books to installations to collaborations with major brands, and she's built a career on her own kind of joyful, optimistic visual language.
Beci also created a lot of the graphics and visuals for Lunch Lady magazine, my favourite publication of all time, which is where I discovered work in the first place. When I think of the kind of creative career and creative business I'd love to build, I look to Beci for inspiration.
See Beci’s work.
02.
Tina Roth-Eisenberg
Tina is a Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based designer and founder of CreativeMornings, a global breakfast lecture series she launched in 2008. It's grown into one of the most positive, generous communities in the creative industry, with chapters in cities all over the world. The breakfast events are all free, all volunteer-run, all built on the simple idea that fostering a positive, supportive creative community matters. As a solo designer working from home, it's easy to feel isolated from the wider creative community, and attending monthly CreativeMornings events is one of the few ways I've found to connect to the local design community. I always leave with all the feels.
I've followed Tina for years and heard her interviewed on podcasts. She's such a go-getter, as well as being genuinely kind and passionate about her mission. May we all try to be a little bit more like Tina.
Learn about CreativeMornings.
03.
Olivia Chen
Liv was one of my design teachers at Shillington College, and she’s become a friend. She’s recently moved to Tassie with her family and closed her (extremely cool, mind-blowingly creative) branding studio, Studio Chen Chen, to take on the role of Design Director at MONA.
She ‘s just a very creative designer and artist, generous with sharing her knowledge and experience, and a mum to her gorgeous little boy Percy.
Liv is a great example of a woman who’s building a cool creative career on her own terms. I feel lucky to have connected with her.
Follow Liv on instagram.
04. & 05.
Amy & Jennifer Hood
These SoCal-based identitical twins run Hoodzpah Design, a branding and design studio, as well as HoodFonts, a type foundry with their fonts.
They have built an incredible business, producing high-quality work for huge clients (Disney, anyone?) while maintaining a sense of humour and a refusal to take themselves too seriously.
Their style is super clean, nostalgic and deeply human all at once. And they’re a bit punk rock which I’m a sucker for. A badass pair of lady designers.
See Hoodzpah’s work.
06.
Mary Featherston AM
Mary is a legend of Australian design. She started out as an interior designer, but over her fifty-plus year career she's worked across furniture, exhibitions and graphics, and built a lifelong design partnership with her husband Grant Featherston. Together they were behind some very significant projects, including the fit-out of the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2020 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to the arts -I don’t know why they waited so long.
As well as admiring her serious chops as designer, I’m also inspired by the breadth of the projects she’s worked on. Decades into her career, she pivoted into designing play and learning environments for kids. She’s proof that a creative career can evolve, and keep growing into something new.
