"I started to notice that a lot of the hate I was getting in the design world was actually not from men, but from other women," she said. With a few years’ work under her belt and a ballsy attitude she directly emailed design legend Stefan Sagmeister. to intern at the notable design firm Pentagram. In this interview, she tells Dezeen how she has tackled it. Let’s face it, although the gender shift is changing the design world is still seen to be male dominated, so having a strong woman with a big industry voice is a refreshing breath of fresh air. I love to play in my work as a creative. "I knew in-house it was going to be limited what I would learn.". The path that led Walsh into design began when she was a child. She turned down a job at Apple where she was offered nearly $100,000 annually to accept the internship under Paula Scher at Pentagram, where she would stay for nearly a year. In … She established her company with Stefan Sagmeister in 2012 shortly after sending him an email asking to collaborate. “I knew in my heart that I wanted to work in branding. Walsh cites a female mentor at the start of her career as an important factor in her success, Paula Scher at New York creative agency Pentagram, who provided guidance and encouragement. "When I looked at the world of design, he [Stefan] was one of the only people I saw out there creating commercial work, but also creating work that was self-initiated and connected with me on some sort of human level," she said. She’s basically a one-woman design powerhouse (love love love). After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts from RISD in 2008, Walsh moved to New York City. Around the same time, she made a website that taught fellow kids HTML and CSS—and as a result, ad revenue began pouring in. "Earlier in my career when I started reaching a certain level of success and recognition in the design field, the amount of hate mail, jealous remarks and outright sexism I experienced multiplied exponentially," the designer added. We will only use your email address to send you the newsletters you have requested. Walsh's initiative to encourage gender diversity. Nat talks about her life, career and partnering with the legendary Stefan Sagmeister. The lack of representation coupled with the negativity she faced from other women led Walsh to create Ladies, Wine & Design (LW&D), "an initiative whose mission is focussed on the idea of women supporting rather than competing against each other". ), but instead followed her gut and decided to move to New York and intern with Pentagram. initiative whose mission is focussed on the idea of women supporting rather than competing against each other". Jessica Walsh, The First Thing I Ever Designed: Early cover work for Print magazine,. Dezeen Weekly subscribers will also receive occasional updates about events, competitions and breaking news. In a recent interview Walsh was asked: If you could give one piece of advice to a young creative starting out, what would you say? Age is just a number…it’s the work that speaks for itself, and maybe we should all take a leaf out of Miss Walsh’s brilliant book and play more. TWOP couldn’t agree more, read our piece on playful experiences here. She lectures about design at creative conferences and universities internationally. We are a creative agency based in New York specializing in brand strategy, art direction, design and production across all platforms. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of every newsletter. ", "The design industry used to be a boys club at the top, lacking diversity across both gender and race," Walsh added. Walsh adds that her mother and sister Lauren, who works with her at &Walsh, are a key part of her support system. Walsh brings the same disruption and aesthetic innovation to her work as part of Sagmeister & Walsh. For Walsh, it was the "surprising" amount of women who criticised her on social media that took its toll, at a time when her career began to skyrocket. When I look back at the body of my work, I realise that the more fun and more play that went into creating my work the better people respond to the end result”. Images © Henry Hargreaves, Jessica Walsh Behance, Sagmeister & Walsh & 40 Days of Dating. Scher recommended Walsh to her role as art director at Print magazine. Local chapters meet "to make positive healthy relationships in the design industry" with discussions focused on business, careers and relationships. She teaches design & typography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC. Walsh is known for her adventurous experiments, her ability to blend handcraft and digital, her perception for bending visuals and her dark, somewhat twisted characteristics. Nat talks about her life, career and partnering with the legendary Stefan Sagmeister. And then like 0.1 per cent in terms of leading creative agencies.". Creating sets for Normal People took a mixture of intuition ... Julia Watson fills New York's Rockefeller Center plaza with ... Visit our comments page | Read our comments policy. "Seeing a woman [Scher] make such amazing work was very inspirational to me," said Walsh. "Open a design history book and you'll see that almost all the famous designers mentioned are white men. Walsh believes that representation at the top of the industry is crucial to encouraging diversity among leaders. In this article, our founder Jessica Walsh writes about how we're determined to help change the leadership gap in our industry, and how our social initiatives will be a driving force behind our new agency. Walsh graduated in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2008 and turned down a job at Apple to pursue a career in branding and advertising. ", Related storySurvey of top architecture firms reveals "quite shocking" lack of gender diversity at senior levels. If she’s not decorating her house you will find her cooking up recipes from her foodie family or propped up in a cocktail bar in town. After graduating high school she enrolled at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), which saw her focus fatefully shift to a more hands-on approach: “I think this merging of craft with a digital background plays a big role in my work today”. To achieve this success she told Dezeen that she works to overcome sexism in an industry where just five per cent of CEOs are female. My goal was always to open my own design studio, so I wanted to work at a studio that I respected to learn as much as much as possible beforehand. Pairing up with friend Timothy Goodman, the intimate online project shot the two designers into the limelight thanks to a combination of beautiful typography, truthful documentation and voyeuristic coverage.