Yas Banks: So yeah, all good.
Rose O'Mahony: All good? Have you done a few now?
Yas Banks: Done a couple. Yeah, you're about, yeah, my third one that we're doing. So it's going good. It's flowing nice and the questions we're getting, it's interesting that people are saying quite similar things to responses to the questions. So yeah, it's always interesting to see kind of where conversations lead and things like that. So no, it's all, it's really, really good at the minute. And yeah, I'm excited to.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. ⁓ really? Yeah.
Yas Banks: to have you involved as well and see, kind of hear a bit more about your, your path and all that good, good stuff. So let me, right. I might jump straight into presenter mode and, and let, I hope, I hope it's not too different. I always get like this conscious and like, ⁓ I'm about to completely snap into it.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah, go for it. Put your telephone voice on. Hahaha! you
Yas Banks: But yeah, it's just a super chill chat. I've got the questions up that I sent over on LinkedIn and you came back and said, let's look at these few. I've got a couple of those mixed in there, not too, a bit of fun really. ⁓ So yeah, and then something might crop up. You might answer me and I might go, ⁓ I'm gonna ask about that. So.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, no worries. Sounds good. Just a conversation basically. Yep.
Yas Banks: All conversation, podcasts vibe, all good. And then after this, we're going to look at making it into content for our socials or website, however it's feeling, we will get back in contact and go, are you happy with this being shared and this, that and the other? Just so you're happy and everything and you're happy with what's been said and just super transparent and all that. Fab.
Rose O'Mahony: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Sounds good.
Yas Banks: Okay, presenter mode. Welcome to Open Studio. We're joined today by someone who believes great design isn't just seen, it's felt. Rose is a senior branding and packaging designer at Spring Gets brand design in London, where she's worked on and helped shape some of the UK's most beloved brands, including the likes of Weetabix, Dulux, Tearfund, Sponge Cakes and many more. But what sets Rose apart isn't just her portfolio, it's how she's approaching the work. She's drawn to tactile, imperfect side of the process, sketching, testing, finding ideas through making, with a focus on curating brands that feel human and stand the test of time. As a mum of two, she's also especially interested in the honest reality of creative careers, resilience, the flexibility and the mess behind what you see as a finished, polished work. Based in London and always dreaming of being by the sea, today we'll be talking about what it really takes to build a creative career and challenging the idea of what really means to be the perfect creative. So, I know I've just done a little bit of intro and thank you for your help on that. But would you like to tell us a little bit more about where you started versus kind of where you're up to in your career and how that has looked for you?
Rose O'Mahony: Hehe. Yeah, sure. So I started, I did a foundation in London at Chelsea College of Art. So my dad is actually a creative. So, and he actually told me not to do it. He said, do not do it. You will make very little money and it is incredibly stressful. And I did my foundation and decided that I love graphics, that I loved it. It was the perfect combination for me between art, apologies.
Yas Banks: nice.
Rose O'Mahony: art and kind of system led things. And let me just turn that off. Apologies, that's my notifications. So yeah, it was the perfect balance for me between art and kind of systems and thoughts and kind of the way the world works basically. And since then I've loved it. I went to Bristol and did three years at Bristol for graphic design.
Yas Banks: All good. No, good. Nice.
Rose O'Mahony: I actually did editorial design. And then I did about four or five free, four or five interns after that internships. I did a mix of things. So I did web design. did, ⁓ also I did web design. I tried every field basically. I tried every field I could being portfolio, mainly editorial work. ⁓ so I did web, I did editorial. did, ⁓ a bit illustration. And then eventually I landed at a company called Big Fish and they do mainly branding and packaging and I loved it. I really loved it. was basically what everything I loved. was building and tactile and drawing and making brands. And after that internship, I went to Spring It's and I was an intern at Spring It's for a month and they extended it. And then they offered me a junior position and now I've been there 12 years.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Nice. Wow.
Rose O'Mahony: which is ridiculous. But every time I want to move or feel like I should move, because obviously people jump around in this business and it's generally when people aren't feeling challenged or feel like they're not growing enough or they want the next role or things like that. Spring is always seen that in me, seen that fidgetiness in me. And they've offered me the next step.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: So for me personally, it's been, and it's always changing, it's not the same company it was 12 years ago. And I think that's kind of where I've been basically. I've been building my career and they've been building an agency, even though it's been going for 50 years. It's been, when I've been there, there's been three or four different executive creative directors that have owned it and that I've come under. So it's a constant journey.
Yas Banks: Nah. Yeah. ⁓ Nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's really important that a place kind of evolves as you evolve as well. And like you said, I feel like that's really crucial in developing yourself, not only as a person, but as a designer and how if someone's too set in the ways, it doesn't really match your kind of the vibe of where you want to grow as a designer. And yeah, that's really important to kind of find. space and sometimes it's not as easy and sometimes you do have to job hop a little bit but it's really great to hear that Springettes has done that with you and been able to kind of fit the mould in that sense to help you grow. ⁓
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, and it's not just me with Spring. It's like with Spring, it's the majority of us have been here, have been at Spring, it's interns. So they are very good at seeing when you feel restless. And because we are a small studio, can, you have that trust where you can, well, I personally, don't know, can't speak for everybody, but I personally have that trust now that I can go to them and go, look, I'm I'm feeling.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: valued or I'm not feeling challenged or I'm not feeling as comfortable as I probably should feel, what are you to do about it? In the nicest possible way. it's not, it is what it is. It's my career at the end of the day. It's not as lovely as they are, it is my career at the end of the day. yeah, it's more like I feel comfortable enough and a lot of people at Spring It's feel comfortable enough and trust them enough.
Yas Banks: Mm. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: that you can go to them, which is good. Yeah.
Yas Banks: yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely ⁓ and anything was there anything kind of in that build up into your career whether it earlier in life or might be recently that stuck out to you that kind of really made that creative career click for you
Rose O'Mahony: I think if I'm going to pinpoint something, would be working on throughout spring. When I was about four five years in, I got to work on TierFund, which is a global charity. And I was a creative lead on the TierFund project. was my first big creative lead. And it was so hard. It was such a challenge because it was a global creative.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: redesign, ⁓ a complete brand redesign for 10 companies merging into one. It was a massive thing for someone who was only five years in. It felt like because it's Springance as well, we don't have any account handlers or anything like that. We do all of that ourselves as well. We do all the talking to the clients. If we do interviews, we do all of that as well.
Yas Banks: Wow, wow. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: So I was organizing interviews with 10 different countries, 10 different CEOs, trying to align them all to one direction, one brand direction that doesn't dismiss any of their work that they've done up to date, but also brought them together and brought them forward. But that was the point where I was like, okay, I can do this. It was very much a...
Yas Banks: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm, bye.
Rose O'Mahony: It was so hard and it was such a challenge, but it was very much a very much like a clicking I'm in the right career. I've done like everything I've learned up to this point has served me really well. And I kind of just jumped in and you kind of have to, especially at Experience Again, because we do everything. You kind of don't get a choice. You have to do it or it just goes pear shaped completely.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It was one of those things that was like, okay, I can do this. I've chosen the right thing and I'm really proud of the work. I'm still really proud of the work, five, six years after. I think what we did was very sensitive to, I would personally, I would believe this because it's my work, but I think it was sensitive to all 10 of them. And I think, I hope that they were all pleased with it. I know there was always, there's always conflicts, but.
Yas Banks: Amazing. Nice. Yeah. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Overall, they still use it. It's still there. They're still using it. They're using it across all 10 countries still. So I'm like, that's me. I'm happy. I'm done.
Yas Banks: Nice. Nice. Yeah, no, nice. Yeah, really nice. ⁓ Would you say that that's the kind of piece that you're the most proud of that you've worked on that maybe had, I don't know if messy is the right word to use, but might maybe had like not the most conventional process, I think maybe the most.
Rose O'Mahony: I would say, yeah, was probably the, weirdly, it was probably quite structured because of the 10, because of how structured you have to be with the 10 different individual companies coming into one. Obviously they're all under the name, but they all had their own identities, brands, they all had their own brand, brand books, they all had their own feels and tones and we had to align all of that. So I, actually that was probably one of the more structured ones.
Yas Banks: Mmm. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: the most messy I've done. There's been lots of like recently we did last year I did a project on sponge cakes, which was they're an e-commerce cake selling website. you get like kind of for a London and Lola's cupcakes. I don't know that you just buy the cup buy the cake online and they're really tasty. They're lovely. But there was a lot of it was one of my favorite projects to work on. was messy and it was fun. It was drawing and
Yas Banks: Bye. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing.
Rose O'Mahony: painting and I loved it. was probably the ideal project for me. But there was a lot of back and forth because people have their own ideas. Everybody has your own idea of what they want their brand to be, whether that's seniors or executive creative directors or design directors. As soon as you read that brief, you have an idea of what you want it to be. And that's including clients. And sometimes that doesn't align with what you think.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: you want it to be. So then with sponge, there was a lot of back and forth at the beginning. So that did get messy. wasn't, ideally it wasn't as smooth as probably I would like it because I am quite organized as a person, even though I am messy. A messy is a creative. I'm an organized person. Um, it was, yeah, it was quite hard to get to a direction where we were all feeling like, yes, this is the brand. This is how they show up. Um,
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: And it wasn't like we all have to be exactly aligned, but it was getting enough people aligned to that direction that we were like, yes, this covers, this feels like the brand. Like I'm very much in this space where I feel like you feel a brand. There's an emotional connection. I fully believe you have an emotional connection to a brand as individuals, whether you think, no, you do or not. There's a reason people buy.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Weetabix over own brand, even though the product might be fairly similar. Yeah, fairly similar. People believe in it for some reason or not. So I think trying to make sure for me personally, when I'm designing, it's making sure that I get that feeling right, that it feels like them. It feels like the people who work there, it feels like the messages they want.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: to say and all the strategy that we do upfront is all about that as well. It's all about how people love the brand. What's the personality of it? Why does it exist? What is it doing? What's the reason it's here? So all of those questions are really fun to answer. But yeah, if you don't make someone believe it's there, then there's no point in having it. Yeah.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. No, 100%. Yeah. And if you do have a brief coming that you may work on and you may have that feeling, the emotional side, how do you kind of deal with the feedback that may come from that? Especially, like you say, you see a brief, you read a brief, and everyone does it. you read a brief one way and then the client may have interpreted a different way or another member of your team may have interpreted a different way. How do you kind of deal with if the brief isn't quite going down the path that you envisioned in that process? Do you embrace that or do you have to kind of think a different way about that?
Rose O'Mahony: I think it's a lot of open conversations for me. You can't be afraid to have those difficult conversations, even though they are so hard. And no one likes having negative things said about your work, especially as a creative, because you take it so personally, because you've done so much. You put so much care, you put so much of yourself into what you're doing, because you believe that it's right.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: And I feel like every creative does that. They do it because they think it's the right answer. And sometimes that doesn't align and it's so hard. I still find it as the hardest part of my job. I find it really hard to get negative feedback, but it's the only way we grow. It's the only way we learn and it's the only way we grow. And especially because we have, sometimes it's even harder because that's the biggest we get. We talk directly to the clients, so it's literally like, there's no softening of anything. So it's like, ⁓ God, okay, you hate it. How do I fix this? How do I fix this without making it exactly what you want? Because sometimes that's not right either. Because sometimes that doesn't work and you think that's not going to work for you. I do know that. I know that enough.
Yas Banks: Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: So it's kind of finding that middle ground sometimes. And there is a lot of conversations that need to be had if you're battling that, which can be really hard. It can be really hard. It's never got easier. And I'd be lying if I said to be had. Yeah, yeah.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely about that communication, isn't it? And that, like you say, the open conversations and from both sides and being able to go into it and thinking, okay, they're not quite aligning or we're not quite aligning with something, but let's make it work because we want to make it work. And like you say, that is the whole. probably the flaw about being a creative and especially being so embraced and so like in tune with what you're doing, but it happens to everyone and it's about kind of, yeah, finding those middle grounds, like you say, and maybe a design decision that isn't what you originally thought, but you have to always understand and realize and believe that. you are the expert in that field, like the client are coming to yourselves and things like that for the services and the creative side of things. yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah. And I think you also, you also need to have that flexibility as well within yourself to be able to take a step back and go, okay, maybe this person knows more than I do, which is also really hard. ⁓ but you have to look at other people and see their strengths. And sometimes that that's hard because it means letting go of a part of a project that maybe you really liked. But if they have something better.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely.
Rose O'Mahony: or something that answers it better, then you have to be willing to let go of things and have that flexibility in yourself not to be too precious about your work. Really hard, but you can keep it for yourself. You can always keep those things for yourself. They're your work. You've done them. You don't have to delete them. They don't have to disappear. It's just maybe they're not right for this. And yeah, that's kind of how I see it.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you can always pick up an idea and then the brief may come in and think, ⁓ I worked on that concept that might come in in handy. And it's all all very much ⁓ a nice little cycle that happens sometimes in the world of creativity. ⁓ kind of kind of going off that, do you what do you think that people kind of misunderstand about being good at it actually takes. Like what is it that it actually takes that kind of people might come into a creative career and not quite grasp and understand straight away to be good, whatever, being good at you. Because everyone, I understand that everyone kind of, it's not like you go into, yeah, I'm... I'm the best at this because everyone's still learning, everyone's still developing, but what do you believe, if anything, that people may misunderstand about that side of things?
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ I think being good, really, really hard. you're always going to be, I can look at people on socials, I can go on socials and go, goodness me, they're good. Like someone else can look at them and go, God, that's awful. It's all down to perspective. I personally, there's people that I love and think are brilliant, but other people don't.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: My measure of goodness is if I'm proud of it. That's probably more what I go for in my own work. I don't try and measure if I think it's good or if other people think it's good. I try to show, even at stage one, try to show things, stage one, throughout the process that I am happy with, that I like, that I would...
Yas Banks: nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: buy into, can stand, someone questions that I can stand behind it because I like it. I have the answers for it. I'm proud of it. And I made it with care. I'd rather measure myself in that way. Because I find good really, really hard. I find it really subjective. And you're always striving for good. Always, like no matter what level you are.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: You always want to be good. You want to be good at your job. You want to be good in the industry, but people aren't always going to find you good. Whereas if you, and people, people won't, people don't always like your work. People won't always like you as a person. Like there's, there's just, it's just the way of the world. You can't be everybody's cup of tea. Like just, you just can't. but I think if you, for me personally, if I'm getting to the point of going, I'm, if I'm I proud of this rather than.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You Mm-hmm. Mm. Yep.
Rose O'Mahony: is this good, gets me into a better mindset, especially when people question me. If people come back, like if I'm in a client meeting and they go, oh, I don't really like that bit of it, oh, that's not very, if I'm gonna use the word, that's not very good, then I can go, yeah, but this is why I did that. There's a justification for it. There's a reason that I'm proud of it.
Yas Banks: of that. Mm. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Rose O'Mahony: And then even if it doesn't go anywhere, I've got it still, I'm proud of it. And then if it's in the world, then I'm like, yeah, thank God it got out. Yeah, because I'm as well, because I mainly work on like at the moment, we're doing a lot more brand world that spring is but for a good nine years of my career, was mainly working on packaging and design, which is absolutely fine. It was where I was at the time.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I really like
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ that going around the supermarket with my partner was hell because I'm because I'm proud of my work and I'm like yeah I did that I did that I did that he's like ⁓ Rose I took ages I just came to get milk like come on I'm like ⁓ I just want to see this no no no
Yas Banks: I'm like that if I spot something and I do a lot of work and kind of arts and culture venues around Manchester and if I spot a poster if I spot a leaflet I'm like I did that!
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, that's the point of it!
Yas Banks: that's right yeah it's yeah it's such like a a proud moment and i remember saying to a friend i was like does that kind of ever go away do you ever not feel like a bit taken aback by seeing your work in the wild they were like never just like embrace embrace it and love it because yeah you should be proud like everyone should be proud of like what what work they they do and i kind of
Rose O'Mahony: I hope not. Yeah, that's what I say.
Yas Banks: interesting thing you said about the process and like if it's stage one or stage 101, like where do you sit and where is your kind of favourite stage within kind of a brief or a project?
Rose O'Mahony: You weirdly either end. So I love stage one. I love stage one because I get to be the mad creative side of myself. get, I love to draw. Draw, I go to, we're very lucky that we have quite a lot of flexibility at Springer's. It's quite a lot of freedom, quite a lot of trust, like I mentioned. So I get to go to galleries, get to go to the Tate or I go and take the team and we go to a garden center.
Yas Banks: Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: like not most exciting, but we get to get out of the office and draw. like, we work with Westland, so it is a big ⁓ part of our brand. And it's just nice to be mad and be fun and to do all the things that you get to do at uni and to cut things out and stick things in. And I love all of that. And a lot of that does go through like this, especially like...
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Like recently we've done, last year we did a redesign, we created a brand for Kelly's ice cream, a premium version. And all of the illustrations on there are my illustrations, which are all ink drawn at my desk because they were fun and I wanted to do them and I wanted to kind of capture Cornwall in the best way that I knew. And then they worked out that the client liked them and they went on pack. So it's like, it's just fun. And then the other side of that is the end.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: where you get to be methodical and you get to build the world of this brand and you get to do all the rules and you get to create all the brand guardian kind of because you make this brand, we make the brands. like, we are the guardians across all, in my head, we are the guardians across all the touch points. We've created this thing. that is now going to live in the world and it needs to look the same or feel the same across social, across the supermarkets or ⁓ at festivals or it needs to talk in the same voice on social or a slightly different voice because obviously they're different audiences but it needs to feel one thing.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: Like not massive, massive difference, but Nike feels one thing, even though it's separate, so many separate sports. So I love that part of it, like making it, doing it on, like showing how it can work on social, showing it how it can work on a banner or merch or like we recently did a redesign. We created a brand called Feet 4 for Paddle, which is in Manchester.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: So it's paddle courts in Manchester, but we did all the, like architecture, the in-house, the layouts of all the shop floor and then the actual courts and how they were made and like all the merch and then all the social and like all the actual paddles we did as well, which was madness, madness for us. it was it, I love that part of it because you have
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah. Nice. Nice. Amazing.
Rose O'Mahony: to think about it in another way to it being just on your screen or just kind of, ⁓ okay, this is it. This is done now. This like lovely logo that I've spent five weeks crafting. And five weeks is easy, months crafting. ⁓ And you just have to think about it in a different way. And I like that part of it as well. So it's kind of the messy and the tidy.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, no, I like that. And I like that you mentioned it being fun because I feel like sometimes when you're so in a project or in work or something, you've got a couple of different things going on maybe in your personal life or maybe in work. And you kind of sometimes forget that what you're doing and designing and being creative is fun. Ultimately, that is
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah.
Yas Banks: that is why we kind of all stepped into it because we all saw something about how design works or wanted to question it or be curious about it and kind of, yeah, wanting to embrace the fun side of it. And I feel like that was a really, really nice, nice thing that you just mentioned there. Yeah. So kind of moving on to more, I mean, we've chatted about the realities. It is all the realities and kind of what
Rose O'Mahony: I'm
Yas Banks: how the realities make a perfect and perfect creative and things like that. what does a career in design and creative industries actually look like from where you're standing in the position you're standing in now as a senior designer and maybe looking back at what it has been and maybe looking forward until, well, we don't know, but what it could be in the future.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, I think for me, it's never been a fixed thing. don't feel like a design career should be fixed. I think you should always move and learn and as you said, have fun. Like you should be having fun. Like even when it's flipping hard or you hate the project you're on or any of that, at the end of the day, you should enjoy it. If you don't, then something is fundamentally wrong.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Thank
Rose O'Mahony: It's, think we're, we're at the forefront of change. think design is always at the forefront of change. We're seeing that now with all the new technology and things like that. And I think because we're naturally curious people as, as creatives, we embrace it as much as we want to. Like we can, we like, okay, we'll play with that. We'll find that. Let's see what that does. And I like that, that I am obviously cautious of that.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ I think you kind of have to just move with it. You have to kind of go, okay, or maybe I want, I think you have to be open-minded. I think that's it really. You just have to keep going and enjoy it and be as open-minded as possible. And think that's what I've tried to do in my career. think I've tried to make myself indispensable, not think that anything is beneath, beneath me and kind of just keep my open mind really, including where I'm working on what I'm doing. Like there's been a lot of things at Spring It's I never thought I'd want to do. Like if I'd chosen it before I started my job, if I wrote like when I left uni, if I wrote a list of the things that I'd want to do, there's definitely some things that I've done at Spring It's in 12 years that were not on that list. Definitely not. But like I've never wanted to at Spring It's as well because
Yas Banks: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: We write all our own estimates, so I do the money side of things as well. Never wanted to do that ever in my life, but it's helpful in the long run. If I move on to somewhere that maybe if I become a freelancer or I don't know what the future holds, no one does, be willing to learn those things because
Yas Banks: Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Rose O'Mahony: even though they're really hard and maybe they don't, they're not what you want to do. There is a re there is it is helpful to have the knowledge. Even though I don't enjoy it, I can see the benefits of it for myself in the future if I need it. And yeah, I just I just think I think as well just keep learning like it's fun, like, open your mind and go to galleries like read books, like read books that aren't
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: anything to do with design as well. Just try your best really, just enjoy it.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's there's definitely a balance between not getting too in the noise of everything ⁓ naturally through social media and all of that and comparisons and there's there's entirely that side of things versus yeah but engaging it learn about it go meet people go to an event that may not be directly linked to design but you might
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah.
Yas Banks: go and feel inspired by something or see something like you say in the gallery or the garden centre. I love a garden centre as much as the next person. You might go and yeah, you just see something you feel inspired like going somewhere at the weekend and even if it's not kind of on your radar because you switched off from work but you've always kind of you've got that creative eye and yeah definitely about embracing.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah.
Yas Banks: embracing that, that the world of it but not not burning out there's definitely that like I say that balance to to find.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. think it's staying curious, isn't it? Staying curious about the world. It's not just like the design world. It's like, I don't know, like when I go out with my kids on ⁓ the weekends, we see stickers, we collect pictures of stickers and they're beautiful. Like some of them are absolutely stunning and there's no reason for them whatsoever. But they're beautiful and like, it's just like, okay, well that's someone just enjoying.
Yas Banks: Nice,
Rose O'Mahony: making something. it's just someone who's, I don't know, maybe trying to sell something, but they've not got any, any words on this, and you have no idea what they're selling. ⁓ It's just kind of trying to keep that, as you said, like the open mind of going to things, soaking things up, going to events, going to places that maybe you wouldn't be, you don't know where you're going to be inspired from. And sometimes like,
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: when you get bogged down with the computer, like you get bogged down with seeing the same things over and over again, and maybe feeling like you can't make those things, and then you get sad. And it's like, well, actually, like, maybe I should just move away from the screen for a little bit and just go to a garden center. It's just, it does give you a break. Like it gives you a break of like comparisons and, and you don't, as you said, you don't know where you get inspiration from.
Yas Banks: Yeah. 100%. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, it does, 100%. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's all around. It's all encompassing. ⁓ Definitely. And is there anything you wish that the industry talked about more honestly?
Rose O'Mahony: Like you just don't, so yeah. Exactly. Lots of things. There's so many things. So many things. It's not as flexible as a woman. I can only speak for myself. As a woman in a company who is trying to grow and develop and who has two children, five and under.
Yas Banks: Yep.
Rose O'Mahony: It's hard to keep those doors open. It's hard to find the flexibility. I'm very lucky talking to lots of other people and other mothers and other creatives. I am lucky with the company that I have and the flexibility that I have. So at the moment I work three days a week. I have done since my daughter who was five, ⁓ was born. I'm really lucky. There's not many creatives that would go, the agencies that would let you go down to three days.
Yas Banks: Yeah, nice.
Rose O'Mahony: and then have you still five years later. It's still very male dominated at the top of most industries. I wish that was talked about more. It's hard to get back into those rooms when you come back. No shade on my company. It just really is. Like when you come back from maternity leave, it's hard. There's a reason there aren't women at the top and the flexibility in the creative industry.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: as much as people talk about it, it's not a thing. It's just, it's not, in London, it's not as common as you would like it to be for me personally. I'm also lucky that my company let me leave early to get my children from school. I do still work when I come home, but it's not, it's not like, oh yeah, your time's off now, but it's, it's...
Yas Banks: Yeah. Yeah, nice. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It's nice that they let me do that. It's nice that I work from home and I can work from home if they're ill or again, there's a level of trust for the employees. And I wish that was the case for more companies. I wish that was the same for more companies, creatives. I wish for a lot of the mums that I've talked to, I wish it had been the same for them. It definitely hasn't been. It's definitely been really hard for them. And that's why a lot of women go freelance.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. 100%. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It is, but then you have to do all the admin and you have to do it with yourself. And it's really, and you have to think about, like you have to think about your holidays and you have to think about like pension pay by yourself. And as much as I like doing the admin, I don't want to do that. Like just, it's hard. It's really hard. And I really wish that I, I'm really lucky. I'm just lucky with where I work. But that is completely by chance. I did not look into that before I started the, or why would I?
Yas Banks: You yet. Hahaha Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah, no exactly. Yeah, you don't, you're not graduating from university and thinking 10, 15 years in the future thinking where will I be then and yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: of 20, 23 when I started. No, exactly. Exactly. But that is one of the big reasons I've stayed so long at Spring It's and they've been very, very good with accommodating from my life, basically outside, outside of them, as much as like, I give them, and I do give them all of my creativity, as much as I can. They have been really good at meeting me basically in the middle with my life.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: That is, I wish it wasn't rare, but it is. It's really rare. And I wish it wasn't basically. just wish it wasn't a thing. I wish it was easy and I wish other people did it, but they don't. Yeah, so that was my thing.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I 100 % agree. I'm a big advocate. Obviously, I'm a woman myself and I don't have children yet and that's not part of my life right now. But there are still things in my life that affect my working world and like hormones and things like that. They do affect my working world and I can totally empathise with like... everything you were saying in that sense of it not being as easy to kind of step back in and it's really nice that you do have that flexibility and I think that more agencies, studios up and down the country, wherever you are in the world, maybe consider that a little bit more and if you could write...
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah.
Yas Banks: a rule down, this is a bit of a wild card question so bear with me on this one, if you could write a rule down that would be set in stone in your wishes and everything for the industry what would it be?
Rose O'Mahony: Hahaha
Yas Banks: Or a couple, could be a couple.
Rose O'Mahony: I it would be keep your mind open as much as you want your designers to be open. People should be able to be flexible and life should be flexible. It's really, really hard if you have one of those things that aren't flexible, like hitting a wall. It's just not, it's not helpful for either parties. You miss out. If you don't keep those doors open, you don't keep your mind open as a company, you are missing talent. You are missing people. who are really good, just really good, and you're losing them. So my rule would be keep your mind open as a company, as an industry, as much as you want your creative's minds to be, because it's really hard if you're not. And also you just don't get as diverse a group of people, you don't get...
Yas Banks: Nah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: people who can bounce off each other and people who disagree. need people to disagree on things because if everybody becomes an echo chamber, if everybody agrees on everything, your designs look exactly the same all the time. And you need people to have that conflict. You need people to go, okay, that's not good. Or that doesn't look as good as it could be. You need people to push you. if you don't keep your mind open as an agency, if you shut all your doors, then you become just an echo chamber of the exact of yourself basically yeah
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, totally agree. And to finish up, I've got a little bit of a fun, again, wild card question. If you could create your feed, either socials or whatever, ⁓ to only show one thing on repeat, what would it be and why?
Rose O'Mahony: sketches, so many sketches, drawing sketches. Can I put painting in there as well? Messiness, all the messiness that comes with making a brand because it's so much fun. I can't, can't, I love it. 12 years after, I still love it. It's just, it is the thing, other than my children, that gets me up in the morning. It's the thing that I love about my job, that I get to play and I get to be messy and I get to make.
Yas Banks: Nice. Yeah. Yes. Love that. Bye.
Rose O'Mahony: something that other people don't really see. Design is invisible for most people, it is, and that's way it should be. But it's so fun. So yeah, if I had a feed that was just one thing on repeat, it would be sketches and clay and mess. Yeah.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that. Love that. Amazing. Well, this has been lovely, a lovely little chat. It's been really nice to hear about who you are and your process and all of that stuff. And it's definitely going to resonate with a few people when uploading this.
Rose O'Mahony: I'm glad. Thank
Rose O'Mahony: All good? Have you done a few now?
Yas Banks: Done a couple. Yeah, you're about, yeah, my third one that we're doing. So it's going good. It's flowing nice and the questions we're getting, it's interesting that people are saying quite similar things to responses to the questions. So yeah, it's always interesting to see kind of where conversations lead and things like that. So no, it's all, it's really, really good at the minute. And yeah, I'm excited to.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. ⁓ really? Yeah.
Yas Banks: to have you involved as well and see, kind of hear a bit more about your, your path and all that good, good stuff. So let me, right. I might jump straight into presenter mode and, and let, I hope, I hope it's not too different. I always get like this conscious and like, ⁓ I'm about to completely snap into it.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah, go for it. Put your telephone voice on. Hahaha! you
Yas Banks: But yeah, it's just a super chill chat. I've got the questions up that I sent over on LinkedIn and you came back and said, let's look at these few. I've got a couple of those mixed in there, not too, a bit of fun really. ⁓ So yeah, and then something might crop up. You might answer me and I might go, ⁓ I'm gonna ask about that. So.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, no worries. Sounds good. Just a conversation basically. Yep.
Yas Banks: All conversation, podcasts vibe, all good. And then after this, we're going to look at making it into content for our socials or website, however it's feeling, we will get back in contact and go, are you happy with this being shared and this, that and the other? Just so you're happy and everything and you're happy with what's been said and just super transparent and all that. Fab.
Rose O'Mahony: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Sounds good.
Yas Banks: Okay, presenter mode. Welcome to Open Studio. We're joined today by someone who believes great design isn't just seen, it's felt. Rose is a senior branding and packaging designer at Spring Gets brand design in London, where she's worked on and helped shape some of the UK's most beloved brands, including the likes of Weetabix, Dulux, Tearfund, Sponge Cakes and many more. But what sets Rose apart isn't just her portfolio, it's how she's approaching the work. She's drawn to tactile, imperfect side of the process, sketching, testing, finding ideas through making, with a focus on curating brands that feel human and stand the test of time. As a mum of two, she's also especially interested in the honest reality of creative careers, resilience, the flexibility and the mess behind what you see as a finished, polished work. Based in London and always dreaming of being by the sea, today we'll be talking about what it really takes to build a creative career and challenging the idea of what really means to be the perfect creative. So, I know I've just done a little bit of intro and thank you for your help on that. But would you like to tell us a little bit more about where you started versus kind of where you're up to in your career and how that has looked for you?
Rose O'Mahony: Hehe. Yeah, sure. So I started, I did a foundation in London at Chelsea College of Art. So my dad is actually a creative. So, and he actually told me not to do it. He said, do not do it. You will make very little money and it is incredibly stressful. And I did my foundation and decided that I love graphics, that I loved it. It was the perfect combination for me between art, apologies.
Yas Banks: nice.
Rose O'Mahony: art and kind of system led things. And let me just turn that off. Apologies, that's my notifications. So yeah, it was the perfect balance for me between art and kind of systems and thoughts and kind of the way the world works basically. And since then I've loved it. I went to Bristol and did three years at Bristol for graphic design.
Yas Banks: All good. No, good. Nice.
Rose O'Mahony: I actually did editorial design. And then I did about four or five free, four or five interns after that internships. I did a mix of things. So I did web design. did, ⁓ also I did web design. I tried every field basically. I tried every field I could being portfolio, mainly editorial work. ⁓ so I did web, I did editorial. did, ⁓ a bit illustration. And then eventually I landed at a company called Big Fish and they do mainly branding and packaging and I loved it. I really loved it. was basically what everything I loved. was building and tactile and drawing and making brands. And after that internship, I went to Spring It's and I was an intern at Spring It's for a month and they extended it. And then they offered me a junior position and now I've been there 12 years.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Nice. Wow.
Rose O'Mahony: which is ridiculous. But every time I want to move or feel like I should move, because obviously people jump around in this business and it's generally when people aren't feeling challenged or feel like they're not growing enough or they want the next role or things like that. Spring is always seen that in me, seen that fidgetiness in me. And they've offered me the next step.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: So for me personally, it's been, and it's always changing, it's not the same company it was 12 years ago. And I think that's kind of where I've been basically. I've been building my career and they've been building an agency, even though it's been going for 50 years. It's been, when I've been there, there's been three or four different executive creative directors that have owned it and that I've come under. So it's a constant journey.
Yas Banks: Nah. Yeah. ⁓ Nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's really important that a place kind of evolves as you evolve as well. And like you said, I feel like that's really crucial in developing yourself, not only as a person, but as a designer and how if someone's too set in the ways, it doesn't really match your kind of the vibe of where you want to grow as a designer. And yeah, that's really important to kind of find. space and sometimes it's not as easy and sometimes you do have to job hop a little bit but it's really great to hear that Springettes has done that with you and been able to kind of fit the mould in that sense to help you grow. ⁓
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, and it's not just me with Spring. It's like with Spring, it's the majority of us have been here, have been at Spring, it's interns. So they are very good at seeing when you feel restless. And because we are a small studio, can, you have that trust where you can, well, I personally, don't know, can't speak for everybody, but I personally have that trust now that I can go to them and go, look, I'm I'm feeling.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: valued or I'm not feeling challenged or I'm not feeling as comfortable as I probably should feel, what are you to do about it? In the nicest possible way. it's not, it is what it is. It's my career at the end of the day. It's not as lovely as they are, it is my career at the end of the day. yeah, it's more like I feel comfortable enough and a lot of people at Spring It's feel comfortable enough and trust them enough.
Yas Banks: Mm. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: that you can go to them, which is good. Yeah.
Yas Banks: yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely ⁓ and anything was there anything kind of in that build up into your career whether it earlier in life or might be recently that stuck out to you that kind of really made that creative career click for you
Rose O'Mahony: I think if I'm going to pinpoint something, would be working on throughout spring. When I was about four five years in, I got to work on TierFund, which is a global charity. And I was a creative lead on the TierFund project. was my first big creative lead. And it was so hard. It was such a challenge because it was a global creative.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: redesign, ⁓ a complete brand redesign for 10 companies merging into one. It was a massive thing for someone who was only five years in. It felt like because it's Springance as well, we don't have any account handlers or anything like that. We do all of that ourselves as well. We do all the talking to the clients. If we do interviews, we do all of that as well.
Yas Banks: Wow, wow. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: So I was organizing interviews with 10 different countries, 10 different CEOs, trying to align them all to one direction, one brand direction that doesn't dismiss any of their work that they've done up to date, but also brought them together and brought them forward. But that was the point where I was like, okay, I can do this. It was very much a...
Yas Banks: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm, bye.
Rose O'Mahony: It was so hard and it was such a challenge, but it was very much a very much like a clicking I'm in the right career. I've done like everything I've learned up to this point has served me really well. And I kind of just jumped in and you kind of have to, especially at Experience Again, because we do everything. You kind of don't get a choice. You have to do it or it just goes pear shaped completely.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It was one of those things that was like, okay, I can do this. I've chosen the right thing and I'm really proud of the work. I'm still really proud of the work, five, six years after. I think what we did was very sensitive to, I would personally, I would believe this because it's my work, but I think it was sensitive to all 10 of them. And I think, I hope that they were all pleased with it. I know there was always, there's always conflicts, but.
Yas Banks: Amazing. Nice. Yeah. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Overall, they still use it. It's still there. They're still using it. They're using it across all 10 countries still. So I'm like, that's me. I'm happy. I'm done.
Yas Banks: Nice. Nice. Yeah, no, nice. Yeah, really nice. ⁓ Would you say that that's the kind of piece that you're the most proud of that you've worked on that maybe had, I don't know if messy is the right word to use, but might maybe had like not the most conventional process, I think maybe the most.
Rose O'Mahony: I would say, yeah, was probably the, weirdly, it was probably quite structured because of the 10, because of how structured you have to be with the 10 different individual companies coming into one. Obviously they're all under the name, but they all had their own identities, brands, they all had their own brand, brand books, they all had their own feels and tones and we had to align all of that. So I, actually that was probably one of the more structured ones.
Yas Banks: Mmm. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: the most messy I've done. There's been lots of like recently we did last year I did a project on sponge cakes, which was they're an e-commerce cake selling website. you get like kind of for a London and Lola's cupcakes. I don't know that you just buy the cup buy the cake online and they're really tasty. They're lovely. But there was a lot of it was one of my favorite projects to work on. was messy and it was fun. It was drawing and
Yas Banks: Bye. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing.
Rose O'Mahony: painting and I loved it. was probably the ideal project for me. But there was a lot of back and forth because people have their own ideas. Everybody has your own idea of what they want their brand to be, whether that's seniors or executive creative directors or design directors. As soon as you read that brief, you have an idea of what you want it to be. And that's including clients. And sometimes that doesn't align with what you think.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: you want it to be. So then with sponge, there was a lot of back and forth at the beginning. So that did get messy. wasn't, ideally it wasn't as smooth as probably I would like it because I am quite organized as a person, even though I am messy. A messy is a creative. I'm an organized person. Um, it was, yeah, it was quite hard to get to a direction where we were all feeling like, yes, this is the brand. This is how they show up. Um,
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: And it wasn't like we all have to be exactly aligned, but it was getting enough people aligned to that direction that we were like, yes, this covers, this feels like the brand. Like I'm very much in this space where I feel like you feel a brand. There's an emotional connection. I fully believe you have an emotional connection to a brand as individuals, whether you think, no, you do or not. There's a reason people buy.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah. Nice. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Weetabix over own brand, even though the product might be fairly similar. Yeah, fairly similar. People believe in it for some reason or not. So I think trying to make sure for me personally, when I'm designing, it's making sure that I get that feeling right, that it feels like them. It feels like the people who work there, it feels like the messages they want.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: to say and all the strategy that we do upfront is all about that as well. It's all about how people love the brand. What's the personality of it? Why does it exist? What is it doing? What's the reason it's here? So all of those questions are really fun to answer. But yeah, if you don't make someone believe it's there, then there's no point in having it. Yeah.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. No, 100%. Yeah. And if you do have a brief coming that you may work on and you may have that feeling, the emotional side, how do you kind of deal with the feedback that may come from that? Especially, like you say, you see a brief, you read a brief, and everyone does it. you read a brief one way and then the client may have interpreted a different way or another member of your team may have interpreted a different way. How do you kind of deal with if the brief isn't quite going down the path that you envisioned in that process? Do you embrace that or do you have to kind of think a different way about that?
Rose O'Mahony: I think it's a lot of open conversations for me. You can't be afraid to have those difficult conversations, even though they are so hard. And no one likes having negative things said about your work, especially as a creative, because you take it so personally, because you've done so much. You put so much care, you put so much of yourself into what you're doing, because you believe that it's right.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: And I feel like every creative does that. They do it because they think it's the right answer. And sometimes that doesn't align and it's so hard. I still find it as the hardest part of my job. I find it really hard to get negative feedback, but it's the only way we grow. It's the only way we learn and it's the only way we grow. And especially because we have, sometimes it's even harder because that's the biggest we get. We talk directly to the clients, so it's literally like, there's no softening of anything. So it's like, ⁓ God, okay, you hate it. How do I fix this? How do I fix this without making it exactly what you want? Because sometimes that's not right either. Because sometimes that doesn't work and you think that's not going to work for you. I do know that. I know that enough.
Yas Banks: Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: So it's kind of finding that middle ground sometimes. And there is a lot of conversations that need to be had if you're battling that, which can be really hard. It can be really hard. It's never got easier. And I'd be lying if I said to be had. Yeah, yeah.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely about that communication, isn't it? And that, like you say, the open conversations and from both sides and being able to go into it and thinking, okay, they're not quite aligning or we're not quite aligning with something, but let's make it work because we want to make it work. And like you say, that is the whole. probably the flaw about being a creative and especially being so embraced and so like in tune with what you're doing, but it happens to everyone and it's about kind of, yeah, finding those middle grounds, like you say, and maybe a design decision that isn't what you originally thought, but you have to always understand and realize and believe that. you are the expert in that field, like the client are coming to yourselves and things like that for the services and the creative side of things. yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah. And I think you also, you also need to have that flexibility as well within yourself to be able to take a step back and go, okay, maybe this person knows more than I do, which is also really hard. ⁓ but you have to look at other people and see their strengths. And sometimes that that's hard because it means letting go of a part of a project that maybe you really liked. But if they have something better.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely.
Rose O'Mahony: or something that answers it better, then you have to be willing to let go of things and have that flexibility in yourself not to be too precious about your work. Really hard, but you can keep it for yourself. You can always keep those things for yourself. They're your work. You've done them. You don't have to delete them. They don't have to disappear. It's just maybe they're not right for this. And yeah, that's kind of how I see it.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you can always pick up an idea and then the brief may come in and think, ⁓ I worked on that concept that might come in in handy. And it's all all very much ⁓ a nice little cycle that happens sometimes in the world of creativity. ⁓ kind of kind of going off that, do you what do you think that people kind of misunderstand about being good at it actually takes. Like what is it that it actually takes that kind of people might come into a creative career and not quite grasp and understand straight away to be good, whatever, being good at you. Because everyone, I understand that everyone kind of, it's not like you go into, yeah, I'm... I'm the best at this because everyone's still learning, everyone's still developing, but what do you believe, if anything, that people may misunderstand about that side of things?
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ I think being good, really, really hard. you're always going to be, I can look at people on socials, I can go on socials and go, goodness me, they're good. Like someone else can look at them and go, God, that's awful. It's all down to perspective. I personally, there's people that I love and think are brilliant, but other people don't.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: My measure of goodness is if I'm proud of it. That's probably more what I go for in my own work. I don't try and measure if I think it's good or if other people think it's good. I try to show, even at stage one, try to show things, stage one, throughout the process that I am happy with, that I like, that I would...
Yas Banks: nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: buy into, can stand, someone questions that I can stand behind it because I like it. I have the answers for it. I'm proud of it. And I made it with care. I'd rather measure myself in that way. Because I find good really, really hard. I find it really subjective. And you're always striving for good. Always, like no matter what level you are.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: You always want to be good. You want to be good at your job. You want to be good in the industry, but people aren't always going to find you good. Whereas if you, and people, people won't, people don't always like your work. People won't always like you as a person. Like there's, there's just, it's just the way of the world. You can't be everybody's cup of tea. Like just, you just can't. but I think if you, for me personally, if I'm getting to the point of going, I'm, if I'm I proud of this rather than.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You Mm-hmm. Mm. Yep.
Rose O'Mahony: is this good, gets me into a better mindset, especially when people question me. If people come back, like if I'm in a client meeting and they go, oh, I don't really like that bit of it, oh, that's not very, if I'm gonna use the word, that's not very good, then I can go, yeah, but this is why I did that. There's a justification for it. There's a reason that I'm proud of it.
Yas Banks: of that. Mm. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Rose O'Mahony: And then even if it doesn't go anywhere, I've got it still, I'm proud of it. And then if it's in the world, then I'm like, yeah, thank God it got out. Yeah, because I'm as well, because I mainly work on like at the moment, we're doing a lot more brand world that spring is but for a good nine years of my career, was mainly working on packaging and design, which is absolutely fine. It was where I was at the time.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I really like
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ that going around the supermarket with my partner was hell because I'm because I'm proud of my work and I'm like yeah I did that I did that I did that he's like ⁓ Rose I took ages I just came to get milk like come on I'm like ⁓ I just want to see this no no no
Yas Banks: I'm like that if I spot something and I do a lot of work and kind of arts and culture venues around Manchester and if I spot a poster if I spot a leaflet I'm like I did that!
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, that's the point of it!
Yas Banks: that's right yeah it's yeah it's such like a a proud moment and i remember saying to a friend i was like does that kind of ever go away do you ever not feel like a bit taken aback by seeing your work in the wild they were like never just like embrace embrace it and love it because yeah you should be proud like everyone should be proud of like what what work they they do and i kind of
Rose O'Mahony: I hope not. Yeah, that's what I say.
Yas Banks: interesting thing you said about the process and like if it's stage one or stage 101, like where do you sit and where is your kind of favourite stage within kind of a brief or a project?
Rose O'Mahony: You weirdly either end. So I love stage one. I love stage one because I get to be the mad creative side of myself. get, I love to draw. Draw, I go to, we're very lucky that we have quite a lot of flexibility at Springer's. It's quite a lot of freedom, quite a lot of trust, like I mentioned. So I get to go to galleries, get to go to the Tate or I go and take the team and we go to a garden center.
Yas Banks: Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: like not most exciting, but we get to get out of the office and draw. like, we work with Westland, so it is a big ⁓ part of our brand. And it's just nice to be mad and be fun and to do all the things that you get to do at uni and to cut things out and stick things in. And I love all of that. And a lot of that does go through like this, especially like...
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: Like recently we've done, last year we did a redesign, we created a brand for Kelly's ice cream, a premium version. And all of the illustrations on there are my illustrations, which are all ink drawn at my desk because they were fun and I wanted to do them and I wanted to kind of capture Cornwall in the best way that I knew. And then they worked out that the client liked them and they went on pack. So it's like, it's just fun. And then the other side of that is the end.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: where you get to be methodical and you get to build the world of this brand and you get to do all the rules and you get to create all the brand guardian kind of because you make this brand, we make the brands. like, we are the guardians across all, in my head, we are the guardians across all the touch points. We've created this thing. that is now going to live in the world and it needs to look the same or feel the same across social, across the supermarkets or ⁓ at festivals or it needs to talk in the same voice on social or a slightly different voice because obviously they're different audiences but it needs to feel one thing.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: Like not massive, massive difference, but Nike feels one thing, even though it's separate, so many separate sports. So I love that part of it, like making it, doing it on, like showing how it can work on social, showing it how it can work on a banner or merch or like we recently did a redesign. We created a brand called Feet 4 for Paddle, which is in Manchester.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: So it's paddle courts in Manchester, but we did all the, like architecture, the in-house, the layouts of all the shop floor and then the actual courts and how they were made and like all the merch and then all the social and like all the actual paddles we did as well, which was madness, madness for us. it was it, I love that part of it because you have
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah. Nice. Nice. Amazing.
Rose O'Mahony: to think about it in another way to it being just on your screen or just kind of, ⁓ okay, this is it. This is done now. This like lovely logo that I've spent five weeks crafting. And five weeks is easy, months crafting. ⁓ And you just have to think about it in a different way. And I like that part of it as well. So it's kind of the messy and the tidy.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, no, I like that. And I like that you mentioned it being fun because I feel like sometimes when you're so in a project or in work or something, you've got a couple of different things going on maybe in your personal life or maybe in work. And you kind of sometimes forget that what you're doing and designing and being creative is fun. Ultimately, that is
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah.
Yas Banks: that is why we kind of all stepped into it because we all saw something about how design works or wanted to question it or be curious about it and kind of, yeah, wanting to embrace the fun side of it. And I feel like that was a really, really nice, nice thing that you just mentioned there. Yeah. So kind of moving on to more, I mean, we've chatted about the realities. It is all the realities and kind of what
Rose O'Mahony: I'm
Yas Banks: how the realities make a perfect and perfect creative and things like that. what does a career in design and creative industries actually look like from where you're standing in the position you're standing in now as a senior designer and maybe looking back at what it has been and maybe looking forward until, well, we don't know, but what it could be in the future.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah, I think for me, it's never been a fixed thing. don't feel like a design career should be fixed. I think you should always move and learn and as you said, have fun. Like you should be having fun. Like even when it's flipping hard or you hate the project you're on or any of that, at the end of the day, you should enjoy it. If you don't, then something is fundamentally wrong.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Thank
Rose O'Mahony: It's, think we're, we're at the forefront of change. think design is always at the forefront of change. We're seeing that now with all the new technology and things like that. And I think because we're naturally curious people as, as creatives, we embrace it as much as we want to. Like we can, we like, okay, we'll play with that. We'll find that. Let's see what that does. And I like that, that I am obviously cautious of that.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: ⁓ I think you kind of have to just move with it. You have to kind of go, okay, or maybe I want, I think you have to be open-minded. I think that's it really. You just have to keep going and enjoy it and be as open-minded as possible. And think that's what I've tried to do in my career. think I've tried to make myself indispensable, not think that anything is beneath, beneath me and kind of just keep my open mind really, including where I'm working on what I'm doing. Like there's been a lot of things at Spring It's I never thought I'd want to do. Like if I'd chosen it before I started my job, if I wrote like when I left uni, if I wrote a list of the things that I'd want to do, there's definitely some things that I've done at Spring It's in 12 years that were not on that list. Definitely not. But like I've never wanted to at Spring It's as well because
Yas Banks: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: We write all our own estimates, so I do the money side of things as well. Never wanted to do that ever in my life, but it's helpful in the long run. If I move on to somewhere that maybe if I become a freelancer or I don't know what the future holds, no one does, be willing to learn those things because
Yas Banks: Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Rose O'Mahony: even though they're really hard and maybe they don't, they're not what you want to do. There is a re there is it is helpful to have the knowledge. Even though I don't enjoy it, I can see the benefits of it for myself in the future if I need it. And yeah, I just I just think I think as well just keep learning like it's fun, like, open your mind and go to galleries like read books, like read books that aren't
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: anything to do with design as well. Just try your best really, just enjoy it.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's there's definitely a balance between not getting too in the noise of everything ⁓ naturally through social media and all of that and comparisons and there's there's entirely that side of things versus yeah but engaging it learn about it go meet people go to an event that may not be directly linked to design but you might
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah.
Yas Banks: go and feel inspired by something or see something like you say in the gallery or the garden centre. I love a garden centre as much as the next person. You might go and yeah, you just see something you feel inspired like going somewhere at the weekend and even if it's not kind of on your radar because you switched off from work but you've always kind of you've got that creative eye and yeah definitely about embracing.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. Yeah.
Yas Banks: embracing that, that the world of it but not not burning out there's definitely that like I say that balance to to find.
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah. think it's staying curious, isn't it? Staying curious about the world. It's not just like the design world. It's like, I don't know, like when I go out with my kids on ⁓ the weekends, we see stickers, we collect pictures of stickers and they're beautiful. Like some of them are absolutely stunning and there's no reason for them whatsoever. But they're beautiful and like, it's just like, okay, well that's someone just enjoying.
Yas Banks: Nice,
Rose O'Mahony: making something. it's just someone who's, I don't know, maybe trying to sell something, but they've not got any, any words on this, and you have no idea what they're selling. ⁓ It's just kind of trying to keep that, as you said, like the open mind of going to things, soaking things up, going to events, going to places that maybe you wouldn't be, you don't know where you're going to be inspired from. And sometimes like,
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: when you get bogged down with the computer, like you get bogged down with seeing the same things over and over again, and maybe feeling like you can't make those things, and then you get sad. And it's like, well, actually, like, maybe I should just move away from the screen for a little bit and just go to a garden center. It's just, it does give you a break. Like it gives you a break of like comparisons and, and you don't, as you said, you don't know where you get inspiration from.
Yas Banks: Yeah. 100%. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, it does, 100%. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's all around. It's all encompassing. ⁓ Definitely. And is there anything you wish that the industry talked about more honestly?
Rose O'Mahony: Like you just don't, so yeah. Exactly. Lots of things. There's so many things. So many things. It's not as flexible as a woman. I can only speak for myself. As a woman in a company who is trying to grow and develop and who has two children, five and under.
Yas Banks: Yep.
Rose O'Mahony: It's hard to keep those doors open. It's hard to find the flexibility. I'm very lucky talking to lots of other people and other mothers and other creatives. I am lucky with the company that I have and the flexibility that I have. So at the moment I work three days a week. I have done since my daughter who was five, ⁓ was born. I'm really lucky. There's not many creatives that would go, the agencies that would let you go down to three days.
Yas Banks: Yeah, nice.
Rose O'Mahony: and then have you still five years later. It's still very male dominated at the top of most industries. I wish that was talked about more. It's hard to get back into those rooms when you come back. No shade on my company. It just really is. Like when you come back from maternity leave, it's hard. There's a reason there aren't women at the top and the flexibility in the creative industry.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rose O'Mahony: as much as people talk about it, it's not a thing. It's just, it's not, in London, it's not as common as you would like it to be for me personally. I'm also lucky that my company let me leave early to get my children from school. I do still work when I come home, but it's not, it's not like, oh yeah, your time's off now, but it's, it's...
Yas Banks: Yeah. Yeah, nice. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It's nice that they let me do that. It's nice that I work from home and I can work from home if they're ill or again, there's a level of trust for the employees. And I wish that was the case for more companies. I wish that was the same for more companies, creatives. I wish for a lot of the mums that I've talked to, I wish it had been the same for them. It definitely hasn't been. It's definitely been really hard for them. And that's why a lot of women go freelance.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. 100%. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: It is, but then you have to do all the admin and you have to do it with yourself. And it's really, and you have to think about, like you have to think about your holidays and you have to think about like pension pay by yourself. And as much as I like doing the admin, I don't want to do that. Like just, it's hard. It's really hard. And I really wish that I, I'm really lucky. I'm just lucky with where I work. But that is completely by chance. I did not look into that before I started the, or why would I?
Yas Banks: You yet. Hahaha Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah, no exactly. Yeah, you don't, you're not graduating from university and thinking 10, 15 years in the future thinking where will I be then and yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: of 20, 23 when I started. No, exactly. Exactly. But that is one of the big reasons I've stayed so long at Spring It's and they've been very, very good with accommodating from my life, basically outside, outside of them, as much as like, I give them, and I do give them all of my creativity, as much as I can. They have been really good at meeting me basically in the middle with my life.
Yas Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: That is, I wish it wasn't rare, but it is. It's really rare. And I wish it wasn't basically. just wish it wasn't a thing. I wish it was easy and I wish other people did it, but they don't. Yeah, so that was my thing.
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I 100 % agree. I'm a big advocate. Obviously, I'm a woman myself and I don't have children yet and that's not part of my life right now. But there are still things in my life that affect my working world and like hormones and things like that. They do affect my working world and I can totally empathise with like... everything you were saying in that sense of it not being as easy to kind of step back in and it's really nice that you do have that flexibility and I think that more agencies, studios up and down the country, wherever you are in the world, maybe consider that a little bit more and if you could write...
Rose O'Mahony: Yeah.
Yas Banks: a rule down, this is a bit of a wild card question so bear with me on this one, if you could write a rule down that would be set in stone in your wishes and everything for the industry what would it be?
Rose O'Mahony: Hahaha
Yas Banks: Or a couple, could be a couple.
Rose O'Mahony: I it would be keep your mind open as much as you want your designers to be open. People should be able to be flexible and life should be flexible. It's really, really hard if you have one of those things that aren't flexible, like hitting a wall. It's just not, it's not helpful for either parties. You miss out. If you don't keep those doors open, you don't keep your mind open as a company, you are missing talent. You are missing people. who are really good, just really good, and you're losing them. So my rule would be keep your mind open as a company, as an industry, as much as you want your creative's minds to be, because it's really hard if you're not. And also you just don't get as diverse a group of people, you don't get...
Yas Banks: Nah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rose O'Mahony: people who can bounce off each other and people who disagree. need people to disagree on things because if everybody becomes an echo chamber, if everybody agrees on everything, your designs look exactly the same all the time. And you need people to have that conflict. You need people to go, okay, that's not good. Or that doesn't look as good as it could be. You need people to push you. if you don't keep your mind open as an agency, if you shut all your doors, then you become just an echo chamber of the exact of yourself basically yeah
Yas Banks: Yeah, yeah, totally agree. And to finish up, I've got a little bit of a fun, again, wild card question. If you could create your feed, either socials or whatever, ⁓ to only show one thing on repeat, what would it be and why?
Rose O'Mahony: sketches, so many sketches, drawing sketches. Can I put painting in there as well? Messiness, all the messiness that comes with making a brand because it's so much fun. I can't, can't, I love it. 12 years after, I still love it. It's just, it is the thing, other than my children, that gets me up in the morning. It's the thing that I love about my job, that I get to play and I get to be messy and I get to make.
Yas Banks: Nice. Yeah. Yes. Love that. Bye.
Rose O'Mahony: something that other people don't really see. Design is invisible for most people, it is, and that's way it should be. But it's so fun. So yeah, if I had a feed that was just one thing on repeat, it would be sketches and clay and mess. Yeah.
Yas Banks: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that. Love that. Amazing. Well, this has been lovely, a lovely little chat. It's been really nice to hear about who you are and your process and all of that stuff. And it's definitely going to resonate with a few people when uploading this.
Rose O'Mahony: I'm glad. Thank
