Kara
Wightman

With over five years design experience, I’ve worked with global clients such as the European Commission, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust in my position with F1000. I’ve also led the design direction at a not-for-profit art gallery, and co-founded a small creative business. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Illustration from the top Canadian university for art and design.

Projects

Email Redesign and Audit

F1000

Scope

  • Full audit of pre-existing email campaigns
  • Gather perspectives of the Marketing and Communication teams
  • A new modular email template design
  • Present and pitch solution to team leads
  • Work with the CRM team on implementation
  • Build template components into the Brand Assets Library

Overview

Through this redesign, all the templates are brought together and aligned to the brand guidelines. The final designs bring bold colour, more strategic imagery, and deliver information to readers more clearly through defined content blocks. This style was especially important due to the length and variety of content marketers are often required to include. Templates now share the same design with three feature options for events, diverse topics, or deep dives into a singular topic.

To complete this project, I worked with teams across F1000 and Taylor & Francis, pitched concepts to team leads, and compiled feedback from colleagues. Beginning with a full audit, ideation, then wireframes, before delivering a final concept that is now used across the company.

Digital and Print Marketing Materials

F1000, European Commission, Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Scope

  • Following various brand guidelines

  • Social media assets

  • Infographics

  • Custom icons and illustrations

  • Conference booth design

  • Printed marketing materials

  • Animated Video and GIFs

  • Working cross functionally with the F1000 Marketing teams (Content, B2B, and B2C) and Taylor & Francis’ Communications team

Overview

With everything we do at F1000, we believe that innovation and openness are essential to putting research into the hands of those who will shape the future. Designing predominantly alongside the marketing teams, I’ve acted as a brand guardian to maintain consistency across all channels and deliver cohesive and memorable brand experiences. Building strong relationships across the company has helped me to create a space where colleagues feel comfortable asking for advice and guidance when needed.

F1000 Design Library in Sketch

iconography, digital advert templates, and colour accessibility
 

Scope

  • 150+ custom icons adjusted for consistency
  • Icons built into symbol library of Sketch
  • Audit of colour accessibility across the F1000 and F1000Research brands
  • Flexible templates for social media, email, and digital ad assets

Overview

The main goal of this project was to help designers work more efficiently and consistently. Aiming to take away small repetitive decisions that were previously made project to project (thinking: margin width, stroke width, logo placements, formatting calls to action, colour combinations ect.) while keeping flexibility in the design, Completing the accessibility audit determined which of the brand colours adhere to AA WCAS, on different backgrounds, and at different text sizes. 

Modus Coffee Web Design

a walk-through of the new site

Scope

  • Website design

  • UX & information architecture

  • Animations

  • Web copy & audit

  • SEO & engagement strategy

  • Backend work (clean-up, host transfer, security)

visit biasa.co for another example of web design

Overview

Through Biasa, Ty and I worked with Modus over the course of 3 months to develop a new website. Our overall goal was to design a website that matched who they were as owners, what they valued, and where they wanted to take their business. Clean, humble, and playful, we used animations and colours in small but impactful ways; aligning with the sort of feelings a customer would experience walking into their coffee shop.

Modus is a coffee company and roaster based in Vancouver, BC, with a shop in the heart of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Well-respected and fast-growing, they focus on ethical sourcing from purpose-driven producers.

Publication, Video, and Photography for ‘Roots Revealed’

Exhibition curated by Krystal Paraboo at the Seymour Art Gallery

Scope

  • Publication design

  • Design of promotional materials

  • Photography and exhibition documentation

  • Video production

  • Curatorial assistance

  • Social media strategy

Overview

With art direction from curator Krystal Paraboo, I designed a 44 page perfect bound publication to accompany the exhibition and the promotional materials. I was also responsible for all of the photography and artwork documentation in the publication. We also produced 8 videos for the curator and exhibiting artists to provide insight into their practices.

Conceptualised and curated by Krystal Paraboo, Roots Revealed serves as a process of challenging the systemic inadequacies of colonial arts institutions in British Columbia by expanding their geographical and cultural scope of artists trained in a contemporary visual arts practice.

Learn more about the exhibition & see more videos

Start with Art

illustration, print design, hand-painted sign

Scope

  • Illustration
  • Publication design
  • Promotional materials
  • Photography and exhibition documentation
  • Curatorial assistance
  • Social media strategy

Overview

Start with Art is a unique exhibition that focuses on encouraging young people to appreciate, collect, and curate their own art collection – with a special price list just for kids 16 and younger. The cutest part of this exhibition is always the ‘secret room’ (found inside the cube photographed) that featured a 8×16′ colouring page for the children to fill in. 

For this exhibtion, I created illustrations for the promotional materials and publication, assisted in the curation of the exhibition, and photographed the show and accompanying events.

Illustration

portfolio

I received my Bachelors of Fine Arts with a major in Illustration from Emily Carr University of Art & Design in 2017. My style emphasises rich colours, playful elements, storytelling, and a love for detail. My work has been used commercially in publications and advertisements, and on commision for home decor and gifts. Though I prefer drawing in photoshop or on paper when I make things for myself, my illustration skills also translate to vectors, and across styles, with years of experience working in Adobe Illustrator as well.

Disruptions

personal projects

Disruptions is a series of twenty highly-detailed pen and ink drawings interrupted by rectangular voids. The work looks toward our relationship with the natural world and a shared desire to seek connection with an environment that is collapsing. We want to see more but can’t since our view is obstructed, whether it is by something in between or because the scene is disappearing altogether.

This body of work reflects upon the climate crisis we slide deeper into each day, with a calm eye, a gradual loss of hope, and a tireless effort to persevere all that it can. The voids can be seen as spaces where something has been removed, but they also allow space to grow. Nature will always be present, and once it is given the time and space for regrowth, it will find balance.

This work is deeply inspired and drawn from the unceeded, traditional territories of the Katzie, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I am endlessly grateful to have been raised and live on these lands for the first 26 years of my life.

Thank you for your time!

karawightman@gmail.com
London, UK