TALKS, MENTORSHIP & COMMUNITY
Moving to a new city and connecting with local communities of designers. Learning from, connecting with, and giving back to Sydney’s creative community.
📍 SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
PROECT: EDUCATIONAL GAME
After moving cities, this project became a way for me to connect with local design communities and give back to the industry that shaped my life. From speaking at universities and creative events to mentoring designers one-to-one, joining community groups, hosting meetups, and sharing stories through podcasts, it captures the different ways I’ve tried to support, encourage, and bring people together around creativity.
CISCO, THE SENIOR DESIGNER
With what creativity has given to my life, I’ve always wanted to pass that on to other people so they can also make an income from it. Over time, that’s meant sharing what I’ve learned as openly as possible — through podcasts, university talks, mentoring sessions, and hosting meetups — simply by showing up, listening, and helping where I can.
Starting by speaking at the General Assembly London
My first step into public speaking came after attending a Design Kids meetup, where a casual conversation with the organiser turned into an opportunity to speak at General Assembly London, a space for aspiring UX designers. At the time, I was working as a senior designer at Sapient, and the talk was titled How to Stand Out in the Job Market. I put together a short 10-minute presentation that I practised obsessively and invited all my friends to, sharing an honest take on the creative process, its ups and downs, confidence, and how to find your own voice. It offered a more human, creative perspective within a UX setting, and became the starting point for everything that followed.
Joining the international local design family of TDK
Moving to a new city as a designer, you should always seek out your design communities. The Design Kids is an international brand with local communities in cities around the world, including Sydney. I first went along as just another member of the audience, made friends with the organisers, and after a while became part of the hosting team. Over a good couple of months, we hosted everything from portfolio nights to Taco Tuesdays to talks held inside different agencies across the city.
After hosting my first talk
In collaboration with The Design Kids, I hosted my first #TDKTuesdays design talk inside the S1T2 studio's peak lockdown, but the studio was filled with designers from across Sydney. I enlisted some of my creative friends, from UX designers to artists, to speak about their creative process and journey.
Mentoring designers online
Mentoring designers online. Lockdown inspired me to put a public post calling out to designers that needed career help. That, plus joining the Amazing Design People list, I regularly speak to young designers from different circumstances and their worries about making it in the creative industries.
Mentoring interns in the studio
I’ve looked after a fair few design interns during my time at S1T2, from a wide and diverse range of backgrounds, confidence levels, and even ability to speak English. Because of that, I often find myself being there to help instil creative confidence in someone at the very beginning of their journey. No one more so than my dear friend Ashley, who interned with me and later created this beautiful illustration as a thank you. It’s something I take quite personally, being able to help another human discover the creative greatness that we all have inside.
Speaking at universities
After a surprise on-the-spot Locdown talk for UTS during lockdown in our office meeting room, and later my Borderless talk, I realised I had a lot of value to give through sharing personal insight from my own career. From there, I took it upon myself to reach out to design schools and universities across Sydney and offer my time to speak. This led to talks at UTS, UNSW, and Billy Blue College of Design, where I shared honest perspectives on creative work, careers, and finding your own path.
Penning my creative philosophies on the internet
Occasionally, I turn my inspiration into written word. I’ve published two articles, one on the S1T2 website about how to build your creative network, using real-life examples of making friends and connecting with other designers. I also wrote a piece for the Design Society at the University of Sydney titled Confessions of the Least Digital Digital Designer, where I shared my creative ethos and how influences outside the digital world shape my approach to digital design.
Spoke on podcasts
After seeing a former colleague appear on a podcast run by an initiative called Shit What Now?, aimed at young graduates taking their first steps into the creative industry, I reached out to be interviewed myself. I approached it from more of an advertising and career angle, and suggested the title Get a Job as a Designer Anywhere. In the episode, I shared my story of leaving London and moving to Australia with a portfolio that was deliberately strategic and tactical, built with the intention of being able to get a job anywhere.
Started my own
Around that time, during lockdown, after a video call with an artist friend in Mexico, I realised I was able to have deep, honest conversations with artists and designers simply as friends. I wanted to share that same openness with young designers trying to get into the industry. Designers are real people. They’re brown, they’re Black, they’re women, they’re mothers, they’re freelancers, they’re coders. From that came my own podcast, Creative Marinade, built around creating an open and safe space for creatives to talk honestly about their lives and work.
And bring together Sydney's creatives for art
This also included curating free events in Redfern that brought together people from the wider community to celebrate creativity and simply sit down and make art together. The space was packed, and it felt like a genuine moment of connection across different backgrounds, disciplines, and walks of life.