Under the Hood: Women in Design with Becca O’Shea
Ahead of our Under the Hood: Women in Design webinar on 5 March 2025, we learnt more about one of our speakers, Becca O’Shea a freelance multidisciplinary designer and illustrator based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa.
Register to attend the online event here.
Can you tell us a little bit about who yourself and how you got started in design?
After studying a Bachelor of Design at Massey Wellington, and working an in house design role at Iko Iko, I was fortunate to land my first job at a super creative agency in Wellington called Inject. After several years of working on very bold creative projects for the likes of Hell Pizza, Flight Coffee and Fat Freddy’s Drop I was then headhunted by a digital agency in Auckland called Little Giant. This finally broke my stubbornness to move out of my home town of Wellington.
Being in Auckland brought a lot more opportunities and really helped me build up knowledge in digital design and advertising in particular.
After four years I moved to an even more experimental digital studio PHQ AKL and I found the sweet spot where illustration and digital design could come together. It opened my eyes to how far you can push a digital solution.
The lifestyle and variety of freelance always appealed to me. So during lockdown, once I had enough back-up funds and a list of client leads I switched to freelancing fulltime. I’m now in my 5th year. Freelancing gives me a lot more flexibility to do side projects, and the opportunity to join other ventures like Collective Flow.
What project will you be presenting at Under the Hood?
I will be presenting the branding project for Collective Flow, and how it evolved. Interestingly I completed this project before I was asked to come onboard as a Co-Founder, so I went from having them as a client, to then becoming the client.
What was the most challenging part of the project and what lessons did you draw from it?
Like working with a lot of start ups, the brand idea is often not fully formed, or it is evolving quickly. This often includes the target audience, brand strategy and messaging. You have to design for flexibility and it’s potential to pivot.
Was there an ‘Aha!’ moment in the project when things clicked and fell into place?
There was a lot of deep diving in this project to understand the methodology behind the product. At first the regenerative design principles and living systems felt like a completely new language to me, then all of a sudden it started to click and make a lot more sense.
The ‘Aha!’ moment was when I finally understood how this connected to the product. ‘Everything is connected! Humans are nature. So if nature can work like this, we can follow similar patterns’ etc. So that really helped to solidify the branding, evolve the product, and more importantly nail how we talk about it.
Now that the project has finished, what are you working on?
The unique thing about this project is now that I’m a co-founder the project is never truly finished. Collective Flow is a part time gig, alongside it I’m working on a few other projects; packaging design, an illustration for a brand emblem, a website design, as well as branding and user interface (UI) for a game.
What insights to your methodological approach or philosophy can you give us?
I have a base framework on how I approach certain project, but a lot of the time I go based on intuition too. Sometimes we draw a box or make “rules” on how to approach something, but it doesn’t always work for every client.
I still think the key is to be more outcome focused. To know where I’m going, and don’t get too caught up on how to get there.
Outside of work hours what creative projects and/or hobbies are you involved with?
I’m both an avid gamer and gardener. Gardening is probably a bit of an obsession at times but I find nature fascinating. It teaches us a lot, especially the failings.
I also make personal art in my spare time, a lot of abstract florals and hyperrealistic portraits.
Where to next for you? What areas of your work or personal development are you hoping to explore further?
I really want to try see how I can focus my business toward only climate positive work, and trying to say no to the ones that are less so. This can be difficult when you still have to pay the bills but its definitely something I want to work towards.
I also want to try to explore my artistic style more – primarily for myself rather than for the public eye, then see what organically comes out of that.
And, where can people connect with your work?
You can connect with me at www.beccaoshea.com, on Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Becca:
