After four years learning about graphic design in my hometown of Cork in the south of Ireland, myself and seven buddies – a real motley crew – headed out west to Canada to “find ourselves” and, more importantly, to find jobs!
My first ever big girl job in Toronto, Canada involved being entrusted with my very own, very big and very important project branding an entire condo development. Thanks to a kind, encouraging and absolutely legendary boss, I pulled this feat off, partaking in the staging of glamorous photo shoots, designing an entire sales centre and even a mobile app (super techy at the time!) along the way. For an Irish girl straight off the metaphorical boat (technically a plane), this was the stuff dreams were made of. The most rewarding aspect of the entire process was the digital portion. I was hooked.
Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever and the green, green grass of home called, where a move to Dublin resulted in a high-paced, fun, jack of all trades role in a techy wedding startup. Coincidentally, this was the year I got engaged and married so any “research” carried out was essentially killing two birds with one stone. A vested interest if you will.
Once wedding fever had died down, a stint at at a very, very lovely web design agency in Dublin with very, very lovely people working on very, very lovely projects followed, located in a studio based over a cake shop that served the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted.
A year of weight gain followed before jetting off to the metropolis that is Sheffield to allow the husband to live his best life. But for his lofty career goals, I could still be consuming that sweet sweet chocolate on a daily basis (sigh).
A lonely, woe-is-me freelancing stint lasted way too many months (though I did get to work on a few sites for Sony Music which was pretty super awesome cool) until I discovered the wonder of recruitment agencies and landed a digital design job with one of the UK’s most awarded digital marketing agencies. Some pretty diverse projects followed – “skinning” up an online Christmas game, designing an intranet for a major law firm and fleshing out pages for UK WeightWatchers.
After the addition of a small, crazy, blonde daughter to our lives, I switched agencies to facilitate a shorter working week and commute. I was lucky enough to join a small, close-knit team that was within cycling distance through Sheffield’s more opulent leafy suburban neighbourhoods. Coding, craic and the (almost) opportunity to meet a former premiership player client (swoon) rounded up the time spent in Steel City (fun fact: one third of Sheffield is actually in a national park and Sheffield has more trees per person than any other city in Europe. Well worth a visit!).
Bambino number two accelerated the move back to Cork to the open arms (and much abused babysitting services) of two sets of grandparents and that brings us to the present day.
My ambition now is to help create products that people want and need. Product design and development is an incredibly exciting space with massive future potential and I’m excited to get involved in a UI / UX capacity. I completed a fascinating UX Design course to complement my existing digital design skills. After years of creating designs that lead to a fairly subjective endpoint, the logic and research aspects of UX are incredibly appealing to me and it’s a direction I am passionately pursuing. To this end, in November 2019, I landed a really interesting role as a designer with Over-C in Cork. With a job title of UI / UX designer, I am helping to create and develop a facilities management software product with a great team of people.
And that pretty much sums up my career as a designer to date. If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to have a proper look. The about page offers a much more concise (and boring) rundown of my design experience and skills and the work page offers an overview of past projects.