Gretchen believes that with deep consideration and care, design can enable positive impact and meaningful change. She is a creative problem solver that specialises in visual communication and graphic design. Gretchen is passionate about designing out inequity to create the space for more equitable, accessible, and human-centred services that are responsive to the many communities within Aotearoa.
Gretchen’s expertise lies in meaningful storytelling. She does this by making sense of complex information to produce clear and engaging visual outputs and systems. Gretchen is naturally curious and empathetic in her design approach, which allows her to create thoughtful and compelling narratives. Gretchen has worked extensively with the Ministry of Health on the Young Māori Women Smoking Cessation project on co-design, research, evaluation and most notably a cohesive and culturally authentic visualisation approach that saw the creation of key visuals, system models, and engaging documents throughout the project.
Gretchen has a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design with Honours (Massey University). Her major project in her Honours year ‘Watch Me’ used a human centred design approach to create an educational experience aiming to enhance the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of parents supervising children in controlled aquatic environments. This project was launched in January 2018, as a national pool safety campaign with New Zealand Recreation Association. It combined Gretchen’s passions of research, visual design and enabling positive social/behaviour change.
