Life as a Lead Digital Designer: Nikki Kennedy

Get to know our lovely Lead Digital Designer Nikki Kennedy in our new “Life As A” series. She’s been in Verve for over 2 years now and has produced amazing content for Verve’s clients. Word goes around that she makes the best tea in the office – I guess the only way to find out is a tea challenge!

1. Describe your role in Verve

As Lead Digital Designer I work with various different clients to help create bespoke motion graphics for their social media platforms, but every day is different one day – it might be recreating the look and feel of a website, the next it could be creating gifs.

2. How did you get your job?

I studied Industrial Design in college which is mainly product design. We touched on graphic design a small bit which was the area of the course I loved. After college I moved to Australia for a year because I came out of college when the recession hit (not a good time to be a graduate). After Oz I needed to start my design career so I took an internship in a publishing house.

I love magazines so I knew this was a great direction for me to go in to start my design career. I ended up being full time and worked my way up to become the art director of Easy Food magazine (Ireland’s no. 1 food magazine).

Even though it was a publishing house it really worked like an agency so I get to work on a large variety of jobs from print to digital. After being with them for over 5 years I needed a new challenge and saw the role of a graphic designer in Verve. I knew this was the right next step for me because I could grow as a designer here.

3. What’s the best thing about working in Verve?

4. Top tips for getting into your role?

Tip 1: Keep learning! Design is constantly evolving and you need to up skill or you will get left behind

Tip 2: Keep an eye on the latest trends

Tip 3: Work hard, put in the extra time and you will be rewarded. Also drink a lot of tea!

5. What trends are you seeing in the industry?

A trend that I am seeing alot of lately is realism & flat design its a mixture of simple illustrations and real life photography meshed together. I am a huge fan of this style and you can easily add nice subtle animations to even get it more life. 3D graphic design compositions was hugely popular in 2019 and it’s just going to get bigger in 2020.

6. What would people be surprised to learn about you – any hidden talents or secret stories?

I think people would be surprised to hear that I used to be a traffic controller, I did this job for a year while I was in Oz. My hidden talent would be that I am a really good whistler. On a quite day you can hear my whistle from Grafton street to O’Connell Street.