Zoe Ikin
ASB
Growing up with designer parents Zoe was immersed in architecture and craft from an early age. We talk about the influence they still have, why whittling wood is good for the soul, her time at Alt and why maybe your 9 – 5 doesnt need to fill all of your creative needs.
Zoe leads the creative team at ASB bank as Head of Design
I loved my copy of The Lettering Book — a book of display fonts you could trace for school projects and posters. The act of tracing letterforms forced you to study the details you otherwise wouldn’t register as a nine-year-old — the shape of different serifs, the angle of italics — and choose one that conveyed the right feeling. That book subconsciously trained my eye to read the details.
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Both of my parents were designers and continue to have a huge influence on my creative practice today. Our house was full of their interests — Domus magazines on the coffee table, exhibition invites tucked in the fruit bowl. We would visit interesting architecture, go to art openings and meet their friends in the industry. Mum instilled in me a love of making; if we had an idea, we would make it ourselves. I think it couldn’t help but impress on me that design was a perfectly acceptable career. We still share inspiration weekly.
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Yes, but I didn’t narrow my options too early. My parents encouraged me to keep my subjects broad and academic at school — we’re talking physics, statistics, English, biology and art — knowing there was plenty of time for vocational focus. I entertained engineering and architecture. I was accepted into Elam Art School, so things could have ended up quite differently.
I’m a rational, outcome-focused person and I need a reason to do things. Design puts creative ideas to use in the real world, which appealed, so I opted for the Bachelor of Design at AUT. I think I would have been a good architect, but at 18 years old a five-year degree seemed far too long. After three years at AUT I was out and into my first job in a brand studio, which is really where it all began.
Unlike every other 18-year-old, I had no appetite to move away from my family and party up a huge student loan in another city. AUT offered the only university design degree in Auckland, and I’d won a full-paying scholarship to study there, so it made sense. But it never felt quite ‘me’. I was very academic through school, took it all very seriously and expected university to be an extension of that. AUT wasn’t like that at all; I don’t think I wrote an essay in the three years. However, there were incredible traditional facilities — bookbinding, printing and photography darkrooms — and pockets of amazing practising tutors.
I recently caught up with Cat van der Werff whom I studied with. She gained a tonne of experience in branding across different agencies, and has built an impressive internal brand team at Canva, where she is executive creative director. The year behind us was also strong — people like Anzac Tasker, Cassidy van Dyk. They’re still making great contributions to design.
I think the two go hand-in-hand. My first job out of uni was the result of being recommended by a tutor to Studio Alexander: she wouldn’t have endorsed me if I hadn’t proved myself. If you’re flying under the radar with low grades, you’re probably not going to get much tutor time either.
But aside from grades, turning up to industry events to show that you’re keen — join the Designers’ Institute, go to the Designers Speak series, enter the Best Awards — it will build your profile and people will support you.
A senior design mentor at ASB the other day told me it’s not enough to be good at your job, you need to show people you’re good at your job. That’s the hard part.
I remember interviewing at Studio Alexander with a portfolio of purely student work. I only had about three things to show, and Grant Alexander homed straight in on one piece that wasn’t the strongest. He asked: ‘What is it about that piece that’s not very good?’ It was such a good question, because it forced me to articulate what wasn’t right. That proved that I knew what would make it better. I was there for three years and learned a lot from Grant and his daughter, Kate. I had heaps of energy and took the junior designer opportunity with both hands — I was there late, inventing projects, doing self-promotion for the agency. And Grant got behind it all, I am so grateful for that.
The biggest shift from study to working in a studio was the reality that none of it is solely your idea. Design is a team sport, and no one produces great work on their own. Interrogating designs with other people is still my favourite part of the job.
Alt Group was the only other agency I wanted to go to. They were equal parts daunting and appealing, they have always been an enigma. But it’s simple: I wanted to make the best work and their work was the best. Fortunately again I had a connection, this time good friend and Alt Group designer Clem Devine, who put my name forward. So I went and saw Ben Corban and Dean Poole with an updated portfolio.
Yeah, definitely, those guys commanded such respect. I realise that back when I joined they were just my age now (late 30s), and probably felt like they were still working out how to run a profitable business — but I looked to them as incredible masters. It was daunting, but again I think that opportunities are created from more than just the work you present. If you turn up on time, keen for a conversation, can speak to your own inquiry and are present in the industry, you build a profile of yourself as a person who is serious about design, and worth their investment.
No, I never sensed that. Once I was in, I felt like I belonged. I was lucky to have Shabnam Shiwan as my design director, who patiently brought me up to speed. She would sit beside me and do what I refer to as ‘verbal design’ — basically instruct me how to push things around a page until it looked good, explaining the whole time why something worked or didn’t. It’s the best way to learn how to make design decisions, and a technique I still use today.
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I was made a senior designer about then, so perhaps it was a good endorsement. On reflection, it was pretty early in my career to be judging the Best Awards. But the conditioning that you get at Alt in terms of being able to see what’s good and what’s not is second to none. And when you go out into the wider world and you realise how much you know. I could judge that work quite easily to be honest, even after a few years at Alt, I had learned a lot from seeing how they did it.
They are really important for agencies for a few reasons: celebrating investment in good design, giving designers a profile and a sense of belonging in the industry, and also for attracting new talent. Good talent wants to work at good agencies, just like I did. I’m in the corporate scene now at ASB Bank, so we only dip our toe into awards every now and then. Our agency partners do that for us!
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I’d never done an ‘OE’, the concept was a bit cringey — everyone going to London just because everyone else does. Designers sometimes struggled to get great agency experience over there, and I felt I’d progressed further by staying in New Zealand and putting my head down for five years.
With that experience under my belt, I was ready to explore working overseas in a professionally constructive way, and I had a chat with Ben and Dean about some options. They said: ‘You can either go for a year and find your own way. Or if you go for three months, we’ll help find a studio and hold your job for you.’ It was an incredibly generous offer.
So I worked for three months in Chicago at VSA Partners. And that came about because Dean Poole has an enviable network of design leaders around the world through being an member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale), one of whom was the CEO of VSA Partners.
We hold large international agencies in such high regard; however, working inside one confirmed to me that some of the best work in the world was happening in Aotearoa. The brand systems I’d worked on here were so thorough and the thinking so strategic, and I didn’t see the same level of craft there, at least not in my short visit. But I loved my time in Chicago, I learned so much and met some incredibly talented designers whom I still follow.
Possibly the biggest difference I noticed was the singularity of the American design vernacular, those brands in the studio all felt distinctly American — historical references, woodcut typefaces, bold character. Back home, on our islands miles from anywhere and with a comparatively young visual culture, we have all of the world’s historic and current aesthetic influences available.
I came back in 2013 and was at Alt until 2021. In that time I had two babies, so a familiar workplace was a welcome constant. I was a design director on the rebrands of Fisher & Paykel and Les Mills — two massive projects that I loved for their multi-disciplinary scope. I’m trained as a graphic designer, today I work in UX (user experience design), but I’m an object person at heart — so I loved the opportunity to work across print, product, digital and live experience.
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Ben and Dean were always quite open about Alt Group being a 50-year project to define a New Zealand visual language. That singular long-term vision is admirable, and it was a privilege to contribute to that. But it was their project; no matter how much I brought to the table or gave of myself, it was always going to be theirs. So it was time to define a path for me personally.
Yes, connections again. ASB is known for investing in human-centred design, and a friend of mine had done some innovation work for them. She let me know that ASB was building a design leadership team. Who knows why they gave me the job, though! I had no corporate experience, no banking experience. The role couldn’t be more different to my role at Alt Group.
You can learn how to navigate a corporate environment, you can learn people-management techniques, but what ASB wanted was the ability to translate strategy into customer experiences, follow the design process and articulate ideas. An important part of working in design at an enterprise scale is storytelling to bring a wide group of stakeholders along on the journey.
Yeah, probably. Im a maker and I get energy from creating things. In a corporate environment — especially a bank — that design process to ship a digital feature can be drawn out over many months and years. It might take a year to secure funding prioritisation for an initiative, and another year for the team to design, test and develop it.
So on paper that environment doesn’t sound like me, but equally I couldn’t imagine spending my whole career working for someone in an agency. Leading a large experience design team that ships products to a million customers has given me a new trajectory to progress in, and a much broader influence than if I was still on the tools. I’ve also realised that work doesn’t have to fulfil all creative needs for me. Throughout my career I have always had personal projects — furniture, woodturning, writing about design — and more recently a house renovation to keep me occupied.
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There’s still plenty I want to learn at ASB and some really exciting projects coming up over the next few years. I’ve helped build a really strong team with enviable talent, and it’s exciting to see what we can achieve.
New opportunities continue to emerge, so I’ll keep taking those up to learn the business of design, and I would love to progress into more senior design leadership one day. A role in the appliance, built environment or furniture industry would be a dream, as they are my natural interests. How long that takes, I don’t know. And sometimes I just have to remind myself to slow down a little!
Ha, how did you know that? Yes, it’s too passive for me. I might sit in front of the TV when it’s on, but I’ll be finishing off work, sketching a new landscape scheme for the garden or carving a spoon — there’s always something to be designed or made.
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