Museum Of Brands Design For Equal
Kelly Mackenzie, Creative Director and Founder of White Bear Studio, with host Museum of Brands, shared her journey to becoming an agency leader in her Design For Equal talk celebrating International Women’s Day.
Our marketing lead, Audrey Madden, shares some of the key takeaways from the session…
The design workforce is only 22% female. Even fewer women in the design industry are in leadership roles. Our founder, Kelly, took to the Museum of Brands stage to urge women and minority groups to shout their ideas loud in their workplace.Â
Kelly’s expertise in creating (and growing) businesses comes from personal experience. So five years on from founding White Bear, she reflects on the importance of standing up for yourself. Furthermore, having a strong support network will slingshot you closer to success. Leading our rapidly growing, majority female studio, she asked women and men across sectors to speak up about inequality in the workplace.
Design for equal means equal representation of people across the board. No CEO should have any ifs, ands, or buts.
Only 22% of the UK design workforce is female
Kelly’s Journey to Creative Director and Successful Agency Owner...
The Bit Before White Bear
From early on in her career, Kelly was negotiating salaries, cheekily asking for parking spaces, and always standing up for the right to have her name on her work.Â
White BearÂ
Almost 6 years on and White Bear has international clients ranging from small startups to big challenger brands. Our studio is founded on Kelly’s advice to always be brave, entrepreneurial and hungry for more.Â
Looking ForwardÂ
Kelly and partner Dave are heading the way for White Bear to continue its path to become a leading player in branding and design across the globe. Stay tuned.Â
Key Takeaways:
1. Learning to hold your own in the creative space and reject imposter syndrome is a life-long journey.
2. The balancing act of parenthood and the need for flexible working for both men & women are assets to growing companies, not hindrances.
3. We also explored the inner workings of White Bear’s recent IWD2020 campaign in celebration of #EachForEqual.
4. And above all else, if things still go wrong “Keep calm, and f%*k em’ all.”
White Bear’s #DesignForEqual Poster Project
On March 1st, we launched our #DesignForEqual poster project. The whole team stayed late one night with snacks, maybe a beer or two, and brought the facts to the drawing board. Each of us created our own poster for the International Women’s Day march in London by answering what #EachForEqual means to us.
Check out our poster designs here.