2019 Womentor
Womentor is a global mentorship program for women in graphic design, offering support and guidance in business and career development. The program brings together senior designers with creative directors and design company partners and founders from around the world.
This year, 22 creative leaders from five continents have been selected to provide mentorship. Creative Directors from New Zealand include Shabnam Shiwan (Osborne Shiwan), Nadia Aftimos (Designworks) and Catherine Griffiths (Studio Catherine Griffiths). International creative leaders include Astrid Stavro (Pentagram), Jo Roca (For The People) and Yah-Leng Yu (Foreign Policy Design Group).
First launched on International Women’s Day 2018, Womentor is an independent initiative founded and run by Mirella Marie, founder and Creative Director of Australian design studio Vertigo.
Learn more about the New Zealand leadership;
Catherine Griffiths
Catherine Griffiths is an Aotearoa New Zealand designer, typographer and artist. Improvisation is critical to her practice which moves between graphic design, self-publishing, writing on design, and commissioned installations in public and private spaces. Projects include the Wellington Writers Walk, a series of 15 large-scale concrete text sculptures (2002, 2004); the curation and coorganisation of TypeSHED11 (2009); and her ongoing Vowel Series. Catherine is active in the local and international design community, teaches on invitation, assists students, delivers lectures and hosts the occasional typ gr ph c workshop. Selected works are in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum; National Hangeul Museum, Seoul; Shanghai Institute of Visual Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art Special Collection Library (books); Special Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago (books). She has exhibited in New Zealand, Chile, France, USA, China and Korea.
Nadia Aftimos
Nadia is the Digital Creative Director for Designworks, a multidisciplinary practice based in Auckland, where she creates engaging experiences and interactive solutions for a wide range of clients and projects. Prior to this she has worked with a host of well-respected design studios and agencies both in Auckland and the Netherlands, in addition to directing her own business. Along the way she has picked up numerous local and international awards, as well as twice being selected as a digital judge for NZ’s Best Awards. Nadia is a problem solver and perfectionist who strives to make the complex simple and approaches everything with a strong sense of design sensibility – and a smile.
Shabnam Shiwan
Shabnam is partner and Creative Director at Osborne Shiwan, an internationally recognised design studio focussed on strategically led creative. Shabnam was born in Fiji where she developed an interest in the arts, before emigrating to New Zealand to study Design at Auckland University of Technology. As one of New Zealand’s most celebrated creatives, Shabnam has helmed some of the most contemporary and iconic work to come out of the Asia-Pacific region. She believes great design happens with the perfect amalgamation of arts and commerce, hearts and minds. Shabnam is actively involved in the design community as an awards judicator, speaker and creative leader. She continues to work alongside design educators with an aim to grow and mentor the next generation in design.
