My path into graphic design wasn’t a straight one. My background spans education, marketing, communications, digital media and project coordination, and over time I found myself increasingly drawn to the creative side of my work. I loved taking something complicated, wordy or difficult to explain and asking:

How can we make this clearer? How can we help people understand it? And how can the design actually mean something?

That eventually led me to create DK Design.

I start with your story, not the design

When I work with a school, I don’t start by deciding what something should look like.

I start by listening.

I want to understand your school, your values, your people and what you want your community to know about you. Only then do we begin translating those ideas into a visual direction. Because a school brand shouldn’t feel generic or simply follow the latest design trend. It should feel unmistakably like your school.

That might mean bringing your school values to life, refreshing your visual identity, making a strategic plan easier for your community to understand, or creating publications and communications that finally feel consistent.

Whatever we're creating, the goal is the same: clear, purposeful design that genuinely reflects who you are.

Why schools?

Schools are busy places. Principals and leadership teams are juggling a huge number of priorities, and branding and design can easily become a collection of things created at different times, by different people, for different purposes. Eventually, things can start to feel disconnected.

Your logo says one thing. Your values look completely different. Your newsletter has another style. Your strategic plan lives somewhere else again.

Yet underneath all of that is a school with its own story, culture and community.

That’s the part I want to uncover and bring together.

Experience that goes beyond graphic design

My background means I bring more than design skills to a project. I’ve worked in the education sector for more than 15 years, supported hundreds of principals and school leaders across Aotearoa, and worked across marketing, communications, educational leadership programmes, digital media and design.

It means I understand both sides of the conversation: what you need to communicate and how we can communicate it visually.

And perhaps most importantly, I know you don't have endless hours to spend managing a design project. My approach is collaborative, practical and designed to make the process as straightforward as possible.

What I believe

I believe good design should do more than make something look beautiful.

It should make something clearer.

It should help people understand.

It should make an organisation feel more confident about how it presents itself.

And for schools in particular, what your community sees on the outside should genuinely reflect the great work happening on the inside.

That’s what I want DK Design to help you achieve.

Ready to tell your school’s story?

If your school's branding or communications no longer feel like you, I'd love to hear what you're thinking.